The Guardian
by ADSigMel
Summary: The Winchesters discover a most unlikely new addition to their team. Second in the series The Guardian, sequel to Sometimes the Hunt Comes To You. Rated M for language and content.
1. Metamorphosis

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. Rub it in my face, why dontcha? BTW, I'm not doing this every chapter, so consider this a blanket disclaimer for this fic. If I somehow gain possession of anything Supernatural-related, trust me, I'll brag here first.**

**Spoilers: Everything up through AHBL2 is fair game.**

**Reviews: I like 'em. They make me happpy. LEAVE 'EM! Please. :)**

**Summary: This story picks up where Sometimes The Hunt Comes To You leaves off. If you haven't already read it, you should probably read it before you read this, otherwise a lot of this story won't make sense to you. Seriously. I'm not just plugging my other fic. Seriously. For real.**

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As far as the casual observer could tell, she seemed fine. The wicked-looking gouges cut into her skin by an attacking werewolf were healing well. The small bruises, abrasions, and lacerations from encounters with branches and the ground were fading fast. She busied herself with the preparations for her imminent departure from the world of the regular into the world of the supernatural. With the money she had gotten from the insurance company when Isaac died – well, at least when they thought he had died…she didn't let herself dwell too long on the difference – she paid off the mortgage on the house. She paid off her own and Isaac's educational loans. She paid off Isaac's car and all of their credit cards. She paid all the utilities on the house for the next year. And she bought herself a few new weapons and other necessary supplies. It seemed that she had put the past firmly behind her and was moving on with her new life. She was ready to become a hunter.

Except that she hadn't slept or eaten since she had walked out of that clearing, her late husband's body a sizzling pile of burnt flesh behind her. She only spoke when spoken to. And she hadn't cried. It had been three days.

Dean and Sam were still around. Dean had wanted to call a friend or someone to come and help her get through the trauma. He didn't get involved in that emotional stuff if he could help it, and he was ready to head out in search of the next hunt. But Sam wouldn't leave. For one thing, he knew that they were the only ones that could possibly help Melody get through the trauma of having to kill her own husband to keep him from turning her into a werewolf. No one else would believe her. For another, he was determined to figure out how the hell she had known who they were. And finally, although he certainly wasn't about to admit it to Dean, he kind of liked being around her. She was smart and funny – at least when she would talk - and pretty damn easy on the eyes. And she cooked. She cooked meals like he and his brother hadn't eaten since…well, since ever. She took care of them, even when she wouldn't take care of herself. And he was determined to help her get through this.

It was Sam who had led her out of the woods that night and gently bundled her into the Impala, careful to avoid the bloody slashes running down her right side from the werewolf that had attacked her during the fight. It was Sam who had sat her down on her sofa to examine the damage, and it was he who had gingerly cleaned and bandaged the wounds. He told her she was lucky that she wouldn't need stitches. She had looked at him and smiled slightly, the look in her eyes saying that she didn't feel very lucky. But she said nothing. He was happy she had even looked at him in comprehension of what he had said. Up until that point, her gaze had been eerily vacant. She hadn't even flinched when he had carefully peeled her shirt over her head and poured hydrogen peroxide and holy water into the open wounds marking her body. It was as though she were still standing in the field looking down at Isaac's smoldering corpse.

Since that night, Sam had gotten progressively more attached to her. Dean might have been the one with the pervasive big-brother syndrome, but Sam had his own attachment to people in need of protection. Melody, as far as Sam could determine, was certainly in need of protection.

On Wednesday, the third morning after Melody had emptied dozens of bullets into her werewolf husband's body before salting his bones and setting him on fire, Dean walked into the living room where she was sitting, staring into space. Sam was still asleep.

"So…" he started. When she didn't respond, he plopped down on the sofa beside her and continued, "How ya doin'?" When she finally looked at him, he jumped. "Since when do you wear contacts?" he inquired cautiously.

"I've worn contacts since high school. But today, I'm not. Because a few hours ago, I realized that my vision was so blurry I couldn't see a thing. I went to the bathroom, took out my contacts, and discovered that I could see perfectly without them. And then I noticed that my previously brown eyes had miraculously transformed into this perfectly startling shade of blue." She stopped and looked down at where her hands were folded tightly in her lap. "Dean, what's happening to me? First, I was apparently the only person in the world who knew all the intimate and sundry details of you and Sam's lives. Then, I apparently became precognitive. Then, I found out that my husband was one of the monsters that you hunt, and I killed him. And now, I've got blue eyes. Dean, please tell me that things are going to stop changing now," she whispered. "'Cause I don't think I can take much more of this."

"Shit," he muttered. "Mel, I don't know what to tell you. Ummm…does anybody else in your family have blue eyes?"

She shot him a sharp look, then responded slowly. "Yes…my grandmother does, and several other family members do, too. My mom always said it was because they were carriers of sickle cell anemia. But I'm not a carrier, Mom had my sister and me tested when we were kids." She heaved a heavy sigh. "Fabulous. So now, not only I'm I a murderer, I've also got an incurable disease. That's just awesome."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're not a murderer."

She let out a short laugh. "Of course I am. I killed my husband three days ago. Emptied three guns into him if I recall correctly. And then I set him on fire."

"Mel, that wasn't your husband. That was a werewolf. Your husband was long gone by the time you got there."

She shook her head slowly. "Dean, you know that's not true. Werewolves aren't demons. They don't take over people's bodies and make them into something they're not. They make some pretty substantial physical alterations to the werewolf's body, but they don't change anyone's personality. That person in that field was Isaac. For the first time in my life, I saw the real man." She tucked her denim-clad legs underneath her. "I always sort of knew the kind of person he was, but I never admitted it, not even to myself. I always laughed off his ruthless ambition, his frightening temper, his frequent mentions of getting us a live-in mistress or moving somewhere that he could marry multiple wives…I ignored it all. But the thing that changed him didn't really change him. It freed him to be who he always was. Apparently, that was a cold-blooded killer who never really gave a damn about me. He was just using me to get to where he wanted to be in life." She sighed again. "I wish he had told me. I'd have been able to leave him a long time ago. I was so unhappy with him for so long, but I wouldn't leave because it wasn't his fault that I was unsatisfied, it was my own restless longing. And I thought he cared about me. I thought he would be devastated if I broke up with him. So I stayed, and only now do I find out that we were both miserable."

Dean said nothing. Melody resumed her staring into space. Finally, Dean spoke up. "Well, your new eyes are pretty." She slowly turned to look at him, an unreadable look on her face. After a second she burst into laughter. Within moments, she was holding her sides, tears streaming down her face, struggling to hold herself upright.

"What the hell is so funny?" he demanded, laughing along because he couldn't help it.

"Oh my god, Dean," she choked out between giggles. "Only you could follow up my woe-is-me tale of angst with a comment about my new eye color, which, if you recall, was very likely brought about by disease!" All of a sudden, she burst into tears. Dean stared at her in shock before folding her into his arms. She only cried for a few minutes before pulling herself away. "Jesus, this is ridiculous. I don't know what's wrong with me!" she cried in frustration. "One minute I'm laughing, the next I'm crying, and I don't know whether I'm happy or sad, and my goddamn eyes have turned blue! Am I possessed?!" She stood up, strode over to the telephone, and quickly dialed a number.

"Mama?...yeah, hi, I've got a question…sure, Mama, I'm fine…no, I haven't been crying…I've got a cold or something. Listen, can I ask you something?...remember how you said Miriam and I weren't sickle cell carriers?...how sure are you about that?...completely positive?...well, my eyes turned blue today…Mom?...Mama, are you there?" Melody thought she heard a muffled sob come across the phone line, and she turned and walked into her bedroom. "Mom?" she asked again. "Are you crying? What is it?"

"Oh, honey," Margaret sighed into the phone. "I wanted so badly for this not to touch you."

"Uh, Mom, you're scaring me. What are you talking about?"

"Listen, Melody, this is something we need to talk about in person. Do you have plans for today?"

Melody hesitated for a second before responding, "No. No, I don't have any plans. I can be there in a couple of hours. But, Mama, this is really freaking me out. What's so important that you need to see me in person?"

"No, don't come here. I'll come to you. And I'll explain it all when I get there. I'll see you in a couple hours."

The line went dead. Melody walked back to the living room to set the handset back on the base. Dean was still sitting on the sofa looking confused. Melody leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. What the fuck?


	2. The Guardian

An hour and a half later, an elegant, well-dressed woman in her mid-forties appeared on Melody's doorstep. Sam and Dean looked at each other and stood when Melody ushered her into the living room. She looked exactly like Melody, only about twenty years older. Sam discreetly punched Dean in the arm when he caught sight of the mischievous leer on his older brother's face. "What?" Dean hissed in Sam's ear. "I can't help it if the woman's a milf!" Sam just shook his head in disgust.

Margaret shook hands with the two men as Melody introduced them each to her in turn, explaining that they were friends of hers from college. Margaret objected when Sam suggested that he and Dean leave so that the mother and daughter could speak privately. "No, dear, I think you and your brother need to stay. This concerns you, too."

She sat on the loveseat and crossed her legs at the ankles, gesturing for Melody to sit beside her. "Well," she began, "I suppose I might as well get down to it." She turned to her daughter and said, "Melody, these men are not friends of yours from college. They're hunters of evil, and your sole responsibility in this life is to protect them from harm through precognitive visions. You are their Guardian."

Melody sat in silence for a long moment, her facial expressions not changing. Then she turned to glance at Sam and Dean. They wore identical expressions of shock, unease, and disbelief. She settled back against the loveseat and crossed her arms across her chest. "Oh. Okay. Well, I guess that makes perfect sense. Thanks for coming, Mom."

Margaret raised an eyebrow. "Melody Marie, do not get snarky with me."

Melody shot to her feet, finally allowing her face to show her skepticism and anger. "Well, Mother, you'll have to forgive me if I'm not able to be my usual polite self! I mean, pardon my French, Mom, but _what the fuck_?!"

Margaret's eyes widened in shock and she rose to her feet as well. "No, young lady, I will _not_ pardon your French! I didn't raise you to use that kind of language, and I _certainly_ didn't raise you to speak to _me_ that way!"

"Mom…"

"No," the older woman barked with authority. "Sit down, and I'll try to explain. You will listen, and you will _not_ snap at me again."

Melody looked mutinous, but sat down. She knew that the only way to get to the bottom of this would be to hear what her mother had to say.

Margaret squared her shoulders and began to speak. "Throughout the ages, for as long as anyone can remember, our family has always produced Guardians. They are…protectors…of Hunters. We never know who it will be until it the…condition, I suppose you might call it…manifests. And when that happens, the Guardians' eyes change. They become bright blue. There are other families that produce Guardians, and we don't know the connection between us exactly, but we come across each other from time to time. In each family, there is one Guardian born to every other generation. But in our family, it doesn't skip generations, at least not anymore." She took a deep breath. Melody and the Winchesters sat in silence, waiting for her to continue.

"Melody, you know about your great-grandfather, my father's father, Bob Lancaster." Melody nodded. "Well, he was a Guardian. His son, my father, your grandfather, grew up to be a hunter." Melody's eyes widened in shock, and she looked as if she were about to ask a question, but Margaret continued before she got the chance. "Daddy did something that…well, honestly, it was sort of unheard of. He married his Guardian." Melody gasped. "Yes, dear, your Grandma Rose is a Guardian."

Before she could continue with the story, Melody cut in. "And that's why her eyes are blue?" Margaret nodded. Melody jumped to her feet again and began to pace angrily. "Jesus Christ, Mama," she exclaimed, "You told me Grandma Rose's eye were blue because she had _cataracts_!"

"Sit down, Melody," her mother ordered. "And don't take the name of the Lord in vain."

"But, Mama…"

"Sit down so I can finish!" She sat. Margaret continued. "Well, once two families of Guardians merged, as it were, which, as far as we can tell, had never happened before, it seems to have stopped skipping a generation. You, apparently, take your gift from my mother's line."

"Wait," Melody cut in quietly. "It stopped skipping a generation, because now the generations that Grandma's gift misses will take the gift from Great-Granddaddy Bob's line?" Her mother nodded. "So who's the Guardian in your generation?" she asked.

"My cousin, Zelda," she said quietly.

"Oh, God," Melody breathed. "She's not gone because of a fight with the family at all, is she?"

"No," Margaret replied. "She's gone because she has a charge to protect. I've never met the woman, and I don't know her name, but Zelda hunts with her, and her visions keep them both safe."

Melody swallowed hard. "So, I'm supposed to be a hunter? I'm supposed to keep Sam and Dean safe?"

"Well, I don't know about all that. Surely you can only be intended for one of them, I've never known a hunter to have more than one charge."

Melody smiled. "Uhhh, Mom? Sam and Dean are sort of a package deal. I'm pretty sure that they would only have one Guardian for the both of them."

"Thanks, Mel," Dean cut in. "Glad to know you see us as Siamese twins."

"It's conjoined twins, Dean," Sam commented.

"Whatever." Melody and Sam rolled their eyes at each other.

Margaret sat down heavily and ran her fingers through her hair. "Honey, I wanted so badly for it to be someone else. I never wanted this life for you. It nearly tore my family apart on so many occasions, and my parents were _both_ accustomed to this life. They almost never went on hunts anymore by the time I was born. But it was still so terribly difficult for them, always being so careful to make sure we knew what was out there, in case it came looking for them, and for us."

"Is that why you never told me?" Melody asked softly, looking at her hands.

"Yes. I was trying to protect you." She let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Fat lot of good that did you."

Melody heaved a deep sigh and absently twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "Well, this certainly explains a lot. Why I knew who the Winchesters were. That dream I had before we went on the last hunt wasn't a dream at all. It was a vision."

"You've been out hunting already?" her mother asked worriedly.

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured, shooting a warning glance at Dean and Sam.

"What was it?" Margaret asked.

"Werewolves. A few days ago."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we all came out just fine."

Margaret could see that there was more to the story, but she knew better than to ask a hunter, even her own daughter, for details.

"Does Miriam know?"

"About hunters and Guardians? No."

"It should probably stay that way. What about Daddy?"

"Your father knows. We actually met because of it." Melody raised an eyebrow, and Margaret continued hurriedly, "He's never been involved in the supernatural directly. Well, not exactly. My parents rescued him from a rather nasty succubus back in '82. That was how we met."

Her daughter shook her head. "So much for that story about him showing up on your doorstep wanting to buy some hogs from Grandma."

Sam burst out laughing at that. "Hogs?" he asked.

"My parents used to be pretty heavy into hogs and cows. My mother still raises hogs, actually. And my husband still has cows, too, although his main job is timber and politics now."

"Politics?" Dean asked.

Melody broke in. "Daddy's a fairly high-ranking public official back home. Just county-level stuff, though. Nothing too big-time."

"What about you, Mrs. Miller?" Dean asked.

"I'm a librarian," she replied.

"And your other daughter?"

"Starting college next week. We're moving her to Tuscaloosa this weekend."

"So she's going to Alabama, too?"

"That's right. Melody started a bit of a legacy."

"So she's a good bit younger, huh?" Sam directed his question to Melody.

"Yes," she replied. "She'll be seventeen in October."

"And in college already?" he asked, surprised.

"Yep. Bit of a prodigy. I was sixteen when I started college, too. That's how I managed to get out of law school at 23."

They chatted for another few minutes, before Margaret rose and said she should be going. She needed to get back to help Miriam finish packing. She hugged her eldest goodbye at the door and whispered in her ear, "If you need to talk, you know I'm always here, right?"

"I know, Mama," she replied. "Thanks."

"Your charges will take good care of you. I didn't want to say anything in front of them, but I know of the Winchesters. Their father was something of a hero among heroes, and the general consensus is that the apple didn't fall too far from the tree. Watch out for that Dean character, though. He looks to be a real heart-breaker. I'm sure you're still grieving Isaac, but…" She trailed off at the sudden flicker in Melody's blue eyes. "How are you coping? With Isaac's death, I mean?"

Melody took a deep steadying breath. She still wasn't ready to talk about Isaac's real death. "Bad things happen to good people, Mama, and sometimes everyone doesn't make it home alive. You know that."

"The werewolves you hunted…is that what happened to Isaac?"

She knew her mother was asking if they had killed him, not if they had turned him. So she didn't feel bad about nodding her assent to the question. "That's what brought the Winchesters here. It's been taken care of."

Her mother nodded and hugged her one more time. "I love you, baby," she whispered. And then she was walking toward her car and driving away. Melody watched until she could no longer see the SUV, then crossed her arms over her chest. Well, at least now the Winchesters couldn't justify leaving her behind.


	3. She's Just Not That Into You

Dean sat in the dining room, playing absently with a lighter and a paper towel as he watched Sam pound away at the laptop keyboard and Melody put away the last of the dishes. He let out a muffled curse as the flame of the burning piece of paper reached his fingers, and he let it burn itself to ash as it fluttered harmlessly to the floor.

"Okay, that's it," Melody announced, hanging her apron on its hook. "It's sweet of you to try to give me time to recover or whatever, but I'm going just about as nuts as you both are." Dean made as if to protest half-heartedly, but she held up a hand to silence him. "Dean, we need to find you some action before you burn down my house. Give me ten minutes to get dressed. We're going out."

True to her word, she emerged from her bedroom ten minutes later in tight-fitting low-rise jeans, a red brocade bustier, and red fuck-me heels. She had pulled her hair back from her face with black and red chopsticks and enhanced her already striking eyes with smoky hints of color. Dean let out a low whistle. "I don't think we need to go out to find me some action," he commented.

She rolled her eyes at him, and Sam punched him in the arm. "Stop looking at our Guardian like that, dude. That's creepy." Dean just shrugged into his leather jacket and headed for the door.

Melody directed him to a nearby bar. There was a pretty decent rock band playing, and she waved to the bartender before going over to hug the lead singer, who she knew. Dean and Sam seated themselves at the bar and took stock of the room. It was Thursday night, but the place was filled to capacity. Apparently this band was pretty popular. Dean, as usual, had caught the attention of several women as he made his way to the bar. And as usual, he noticed and, if such a thing was even possible, added even more swagger to his stride.

As the band started up its next set, Melody headed over to join them. She turned a few heads of her own, but was completely oblivious. Sam and Dean weren't, but then, Winchesters tended to notice everything. When she asked the bartender, Danny, for her usual, a tallish blond gentleman stood from his table nearby and walked over. When Danny sat Melody's glass of whiskey in front of her, the man instructed the bartender to put it on his tab. Danny looked to Melody, who gave the stranger a once-over before nodding her approval. Danny shrugged and walked away.

"Thank you," she said, indicating the drink.

"Don't mention it," the man replied, with a mega-watt grin. Well, he was damn attractive, she had to give him that. "I'm Brad," he said.

"Melody," she told him, extending a hand for him to shake. He took it in both of his and dropped a kiss on the back of it. She heard Dean let out a snort behind her and kicked him surreptitiously in the shin.

"So, Brad," she purred, "I don't recall seeing you here before."

"It's my first time here, but I'm really glad I came tonight. It's not every night that I find myself in the presence of such exceptional beauty."

Dean snorted again, and Melody turned to snap at him, but was interrupted by the lead singer yelling her name into the microphone. "Hey, Mel!" She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "You feel like singing?" She shook her head no, but he goaded her, and the crowd cheered, until she finally got to her feet, telling Brad she would be right back. The regulars burst into applause as she took the stage. The bandleader, Jason, spoke into the mike as she approached. "Alright, y'all, we don't normally do any of this new-fangled music, but our Melody here really loves this band called Evanescence. So we learned this one song just for her." He handed Melody the microphone and stepped off the stage.

She closed her eyes and waited for the opening chord. When it came, she opened her eyes and sang into the mike.

_Don't lie to me_

_If you loved me_

_You would be here with me_

_You want me_

_Come find me_

_Make up your mind_

She belted out the song with an intensity that neither Sam nor Dean anticipated, and finished to thunderous applause. She blew a kiss to the crowd before launching into "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey. She finished with "I Love Rock 'N Roll" before stepping off the stage and returning to the bar. Sam, Dean, and Brad were all looking at her in utter astonishment. "What?" she asked with a smirk. "Sometimes incredibly hot and incredibly intelligent women are also incredibly talented. It's rare, but it does happen."

"Will you marry me?" Brad asked.

"I already tried, dude, she didn't go for it," Dean commented.

"Maybe you didn't ask the question right," Brad shot back.

Dean was starting to really dislike this guy, and Melody could see it. All in all, it was pretty funny to her. After all, Dean was usually the one getting hit on at bars, and he looked to be almost jealous. "Hey, Brad," she said, "it's kinda loud over here. Why don't we go sit in the back?" When Dean made as if to join them, she pushed him back onto his barstool and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "If you're planning on picking up a couple of chicks for you and Sammy tonight, it'll probably be a lot easier if you don't already have a girl with you, dontcha think, darlin'?" She walked off, pulling Brad along behind her before Dean had a chance to reply.

Behind her, Sam snorted with laughter as Dean fumed. "What's the big deal, dude? Mel's a big girl, she can take care of herself."

"Whatever, man," he ground out, ordering another drink and pointedly avoiding looking at the table where Melody had draped herself over Brad. "Looks like the grieving widow is consoling herself nicely."

"That was low, Dean. She's obviously hanging on by a thread here. If this is what it takes for her to forget how fucked up her life is right now, I think she deserves to have whatever fun she can find."

"It's not healthy. She needs a therapist, not that guy."

Sam stared at his brother in disbelief. "Dean, you're the last person who can talk shit about people finding emotional release in unhealthy ways."

"Yeah, well, I'm not like other people." He took a sip of his beer before continuing, "Anyway, I don't need emotional release. That shit's for chicks and pansies like you. What I need is physical release, and I think that redhead across the room might be just the ticket." With that, he stood up, grabbed his beer, and strode over to join her, leaving Sam to watch his retreating back. As usual.

Melody quickly discovered that Brad's normal conversation was even more pathetic than his lame come-on lines. Apparently, he was an accountant. Melody knew her fair share of interesting accountants, but Brad was not among them. When he started regaling her with tales of a particularly complex tax return he had filed for one of his large corporate clients the year before, her eyes started to glaze over. Finally, just to shut him up, she leaned over and kissed him passionately.

As soon as her lips met his, she realized what a mistake it had been. Brad even worse at kissing than he was at conversation and flirting. But the three whiskeys she had downed within the past hour were clouding her judgment, so it took a little too long for her mind to catch up with her actions. Brad wrapped his arms around her and shoved his tongue into her mouth. She put up with him for a little while before pulling away. The poor guy was grinning as though he thought he had rocked her world. It turned out that was exactly what he thought, because he slid out of his seat, slapped a few bills on the table, and pulled her from her seat, wrapping an arm around her waist and whispering in her ear, "Why don't we continue this at my place?"

She pulled away, smiled gently, and said, "Sorry, Brad, but I really don't think that's such a good idea."

He looked confused. Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe he was just stupid, but he really didn't get that he was being turned down. Probably wasn't used to it. What with his looks and his bank account, most girls probably didn't care about his lack of other attributes. "What do you mean?" he asked daftly.

"I mean I'm not interested. Sorry, Brad." She made as if to walk away, but he held on to her arm and pulled her back. Caught off guard, she stumbled into his chest.

"Is this that 'hard to get' game I always hear about? 'Cause I really don't think that's cute. Come on, babe, we both know you want this as much as I do."

It was all she could do to keep from snickering at his words, but his firm grip on her arm told her that laughing in his face might not be the best of all possible ideas right that second. Instead, she said, "I don't play games, Brad. I'm sure you're a really nice guy, but I'm not going home with you tonight." She made as if to pull her arm away, but his grip tightened. She glanced over and saw that Sam had joined Dean at the redhead's table and was chatting up the woman's brunette friend. She didn't know whether to be nervous or relieved that neither of them was paying attention to her and Brad. She turned her attention back to her unwanted suitor when she felt his lips descend on her neck and pushed him gently but firmly away from her. "I mean it, Brad. I'm not interested, and I'm going to go back and join my friends now."

He shook his head. "No, I don't think you are."

"And how exactly do you plan on stopping me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and hoping like hell that he didn't notice her wildly fluttering pulse.

"Well, if reason doesn't work, there's always force," he said coldly. This was no longer about his ardor. Now it was about his ego. Melody could clearly see that he meant what he said, and, although she knew that Dean and Sam would back her up if she needed them to, her heart began to pound in her chest. She tried once more to remove her arm from his grasp, but his grip only tightened even further, and he started pulling her toward the nearby exit door.

"Let go of me!" she yelled as he dragged her along. This was not good. For the love of God, she had taken out four werewolves mere days before, surely she could stop an accountant from dragging her out of a bar!

Dean and Sam had finally noticed her predicament, and were headed toward the door to cut Brad off. Her heart sank. She had been in plenty of embarrassing situations in her life, but having to be rescued by the people it was her job to protect would definitely fall near the top of that list. So she took a deep breath and half-ran to overtake Brad. Planting herself firmly in front of him, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled his head down close to hers. "Hey, baby, there's no need to get rough. I like a man who knows what he wants and isn't afraid to take it. Of course I'm going home with you tonight."

She reached up to place a kiss on his partially open mouth. His hand released its death grip on her arm and dropped down to cup her ass. She slide one of her legs between his and pressed her body close to his for just a moment before drawing back far enough to plant her knee firmly in his crotch. He let out an almost silent moan as he staggered backward, bent double. She took advantage of the opportunity to land a solid cross to his right eye. The satisfaction of feeling his eyebrow open under her knuckle was almost enough to make up for the searing pain that echoed through her hand and up her arm. She drew back, shaking her hand as Brad toppled to the tile floor of the bar. Seeing that the man, while dazed, was still conscious, she carefully crouched above his chest and lowered her face close to his ear. "Brad, I know you're a little socially awkward, but even you should be able to figure out that 'no' means 'no.'" She leaned even closer to his ear and breathed, "Sometimes, she's just not that into you."

With that, she stood up, only to be half-dragged out of the bar after all. This time she didn't struggle. It was Dean's fingers wrapped around her bicep, and she knew she was too rattled to go another round tonight.


	4. Release

"What the fuck were you thinking?" he raged.

"What the fuck business is it of yours?" she retorted.

"Well, in case you hadn't noticed, we're working together now. I'm not crazy about the idea, but that's the way it is, so you need to start thinking about somebody other than yourself and your raging hormones before you throw yourself at the next guy that comes your way, alright?"

"You know what, Dean? Fuck you! You fucking hypocrite," she spat.

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you don't get to judge me. _You_ get to go out and get yourself laid whenever shit gets to be too much for you, instead of talking about it, like normal people!"

"Oh? Well, now who's being hypocritical? If 'normal' people talk about shit, then why aren't you talking, huh?"

Her face crumpled just a bit, but she struggled to maintain her composure as she paced the living room. Sam, anticipating the blowout that had been brewing since…well, almost since he and his brother had stepped cautiously into this woman's house the week before…had long since retreated to the room he and Dean were sharing. "You want to know why I don't talk about it? Well, fuck, Dean, I guess it's because _I don't have anybody_! Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm not ready to talk to my mom, and I wouldn't even if I _were_ ready. Jesus, you've met her! She loves me and wants to support me, I know that. But she's, like, a fucking Stepford Wife, she's so goddamn perfect and so goddamn uptight! She knows about all this crap, but I can't _talk_ to her about it because her greatest desire in life is to pretend that it doesn't exist! And I _can't _talk to anyone else, because anyone else would think I'm fucking nuts!"

She stopped ranting and paced in silence for a few seconds. Then, "But if you want me to talk, then fine, I'll talk. Last Sunday, I found out that my husband left me for a werewolf. A _werewolf_, Dean! And I found out that he was a fucking werewolf, too. For two months, I lived with a real live _lycanthrope_, and I didn't even know the goddamn difference! What does that say about me?! It sure as hell doesn't make me a good fucking wife. What was I doing that was so important that I couldn't keep this from happening to him, huh? Going out and getting plastered in a desperate attempt to forget how much my life sucked at home? Is that why I had to kill my husband, Dean? Because I was restless and disenchanted with my marriage?"

He made as if to cut in, but she continued before he could. "You know what really sucks? If I were a good wife, when he asked me to join him, to let him change me, I would have at least considered it. But I didn't. Not for one second. I knew from the moment he stepped into that clearing that I had to take him out, and the fact that I was bound to him 'til death do us part didn't factor into it at all. You balked at the very _thought_ of killing Sam, not to save just yourself, but to save the world! And when Sam had to shoot Madison, he didn't do it because he wanted her dead. He did it because he cared about her and she asked him to. She fucking _begged _him to kill her! But me? I didn't have any valiant and noble reason for putting those bullets in Isaac. I did it because he had to die and that was just the way it was, and I didn't even…" She stopped and took a long shuddering breath. "I didn't even tell him I loved him before I…" She stood in the middle of the room, shaking like a leaf. "Dean, what does it mean when a person can't cry about having done the things I've done? I've tried and tried, but I can't seem to make myself shed a single tear for Isaac since I walked out of that clearing. I used to be able to cry about things. I remember being able to cry and let out my emotions and _feel_ things. But I can't feel anything at all right now. Dean, what does that mean?"

She stood there in her tight-fitting low-rise jeans, and her red brocade bustier, and her red fuck-me heels. Her hair was still held in place with black and red chopsticks, her already striking eyes were still enhanced with hints of smoky color. She still looked like the woman who had left a radioactive Ken doll by the name of Brad lying bloody on the floor of the bar they had just left. But to Dean, she also looked like Sam had on so many occasions. Confused, bereft, so very vulnerable, so very innocent. Well, Dean couldn't really hold his little brother anymore, not after everything that Sammy had seen and done, not now that he'd become a man. Winchesters weren't into that kind of shit. But Dean could hold this overwhelmed and shaking woman. So he did. And after a moment of stiffness, of trying to hold herself together, of fighting to appear strong in front of her charge, she let go and relaxed into his arms.

After a moment, Dean pulled back and looked at her still-strained face. Mustering a tone that his father had often used on him and hoping against hope that it would work on her, he ordered, "Cry" before hauling her back against his chest. She let out a shaky breath and then she did as he said. She cried. She mumbled unintelligibly about hate, mistrust, failure, insecurity, anger, alcohol, and even polygamy, and her tears went on until Dean and Melody both wondered if they would ever stop. The thought that she might drown in her own tears only made her cry harder. Dean maneuvered them both to the sofa, without releasing his hold on her, and pulled her into his lap, where she continued to sob into his shirt. He murmured meaningless words of comfort into her hair, but didn't try to get her to stop crying.

Truth be told, on occasion he wished he could cry like this, too. Sometimes, the hunt got to be just a little too much for him. Sometimes, Sammy came just a little too close to death for Dean's liking. After all, only a few months earlier, Dean had paced beside Sam's lifeless body, trying to get him to come back, knowing that Sam couldn't do it without Dean's help. Knowing just as well that Dean couldn't – or wouldn't…maybe both – survive without Sam beside him. Sometimes Dean wondered who he was. Just Dean Winchester. Not John and Mary Winchester's son. Not Sam Winchester's brother. Just Dean. Surely he was more than a good little soldier and a protective big brother. But aside from being who he had been raised to be, a hunter and a protector, all Dean had was a killer smile, a long line of satisfied – if not necessarily satisfying – women, and a lot of hangovers. Well, and the car. But the car was all mixed up in his mind with John and Sam and the hunt. The never-ending hunt. So, since Dean couldn't imagine what he would be without the things that made him who he was, he stopped thinking about it and fought tooth and nail to hold onto the only thing left that kept him firmly rooted in his own life, such as it was. And he brought Sammy back from the dead. That's the kind of insane shit that protective big brothers do, right? And what was Dean Winchester if he wasn't a protective big brother?

He hadn't cried. Not when he made the deal, not when Sam found out about the deal, and not later. Big brothers don't cry. They man up and accept the fact that they've got a year left to live, and they convince themselves that it doesn't matter because Sammy's okay. If Sammy's okay, then Dean's done his job. Fuck the fact that Dean, as much as he would never admit it to Sam or anyone else, even himself, wasn't done living. He'd always sort of thought, way back in the deep dark recesses of his mind, that after The Demon was destroyed, hunting would become more of a hobby than anything else. He thought he'd send Sam back to New York, back to Sarah Blake. Sam could finish school, get his law degree, settle down with a wife and some kids and a fancy-schmancy legal practice. And maybe Dean could do the same. Well, not the college and law crap, but the settling down bit. He could open up some sort of business, maybe a garage or something. Find himself a hot chick to marry. Maybe even produce some offspring of his own. Dean shook his head. Melody was still sitting in his lap sobbing into his shirt, and he had nine-and-a-half months left to live. Not enough time to dwell on shoulda-coulda-woulda's. He reminded himself that Sammy was alive, and that would have to be enough for him.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Melody stopped crying and pulled away from Dean's dripping-wet shoulder. She awkwardly dragged herself off his lap and onto her feet, and grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the coffee table. "Thanks," she murmured self-consciously, not looking at him, as she swiped at her face, succeeding only in smearing her makeup even further.

"Don't mention it," Dean said, Melody's obvious embarrassment making him uncomfortable as well. "So," he said, changing the subject quickly, "what happened with that guy at the bar, anyway?"

She shook her head ruefully. "Totally my fault. He was boring me to tears with talk about taxes. Who, may I ask, talks about taxes while trying to pick up girls at bars? Anyway, in order to save myself from death by dullness, I kissed him to shut him up. I know, I know, not the smartest idea I've ever had, right? Bless his little pea-pickin' heart, but that poor moron apparently learned how to kiss from watching _Cruel Intentions_, 'cause I'm almost positive that he was trying to write the alphabet in my mouth with his tongue." She stopped and shuddered. "By the time he got to _K_, I was actually feeling nauseous, so I thought I'd try to extricate myself. He disapproved of my plan. And I guess you know the rest."

"Huh," Dean grunted. "Yeah, that was your fault."

She raised an eyebrow. "The appropriate response, Dean, would be, 'Oh, Mel, that wasn't your fault at all. No woman deserves that sort of treatment. That guy was an asshole who got exactly what was coming to him.'"

"Oh, I don't debate the fact that he was an asshole, or that he got what was coming to him. But you _were_ teasing him. Most guys don't take too well to that kind of behavior."

"Yeah, well, it's that kind of reasoning that leads people to blame rape victims."

"Hey, wait a minute, I didn't say anything about blaming any victims, of rape or anything else. I'm just saying that I understand how he could have gotten the wrong idea about you. I mean, you walk into a bar with your boobs sticking out the top of whatever that thing is you're wearing and you're bound to attract a certain kind of attention. Then after the way you threw yourself at the guy? Hell, _I_ even thought you were planning on screwing him, and I _know_ you."

She had no rational rebuttal to his argument, so she griped, "You don't know me, Dean. If you thought I was going to screw some random guy I met at a fucking _bar_, then you don't know me at all." She didn't mention that she had gone out that very night with a pretty strong inclination to do just that…find a hot guy, get wasted, and find some physical release. Truth be told, Mel was horny, and with Isaac gone, she was also free. Just, apparently, not quite free enough to let her body tell her mind to take a hike and let it get some flippin' action.

Dean just shrugged. "Okay." He glanced at her and half-smiled. "Gene Simmons called. He wants his makeup kit back."

Melody glanced at herself in the mirror hanging in the foyer. She started a bit at her streaked appearance, then muttered, "Screw you, Dean," before heading into her bedroom.

"'Night," he called after her. She shut the door and sighed before heading off to wash her face and change into a nightgown. Just as she was about to climb into bed, a knock at the door stopped her. She opened the bedroom door to find herself pulled into a strong pair of arms and thoroughly kissed. After a moment of stunned shock, she returned the kiss, her mouth opening like a flower to the tongue licking delicately at her lips. It explored the recesses of her mouth and she sank into it. Strong but surprisingly gentle fingers sang through her hair, and she sighed, giving herself over to the sensation. Finally, the mouth ceased its sweet attack on hers and she found herself panting, still enclosed in Dean's arms. "I thought I'd help you get that annoying accountant taste out of your mouth. You're welcome," he informed her with that trademark smirk that made her knees go weak. He released her and, as she stood watching in silence, still utterly unable to form words, he went to the room he shared with Sam and closed the door behind him.


	5. Happy Birthday to Me

Melody woke up at ten o'clock Friday morning to find Sam and Dean perched on the edge of her bed, looking for all the world like small children anxiously awaiting a Saturday morning game of catch. She thought to herself that if she were a halfway decent hunter, she'd have shot at least one of them before they reached the bed. Even _she_ knew enough to know not to sneak up on hunters in their sleep. Made a mental note to try to figure out a way to sleep lighter. After all, sleeping too heavily in her new profession could cause a girl to wake up dead. She ran a hand self-consciously through her hair and quipped, "Surely you two are big enough to fix your own cereal by now." Dean nudged Sam, who held out a package wrapped in newspaper and tied with what she recognized as one of her pink hair ribbons. "Happy birthday," they said in unison.

Her eyes widened. "Oh my gosh, you guys didn't have to do this! Thank you!"

"Dude, don't thank us until you open it," Dean teased.

She just held the package in her hands for a moment. "You _are_ gonna open it, aren't you?" Sam asked.

She nodded and untied the ribbon, then carefully peeled back the newspaper wrapping as though it were precious two-millennia-old papyrus. Inside she found a shoebox. She looked up and quirked an eyebrow at the guys. "You got me a pair of Pradas?" she asked.

Dean shot her a Look. "No, smartass, we found that box in our bedroom closet. Apparently you bought _yourself_ a pair of Pradas, and you don't even remember. How the hell do you not remember buying $500 shoes?"

She looked at the box closer. "Oh, yeah. I love these shoes, they're in my closet. The heel caps need to be replaced, though."

"Open the damn box!" Dean snapped. Sam whacked him on the arm. "It's her birthday, man, don't yell at her!" Dean looked appropriately chagrined, and Melody removed the lid of the box with a flourish. Her hands stilled, and she looked up, eyes wide. "Is this…?" She trailed off as she removed it from the box and turned it in her hands.

"Yep," Dean replied proudly. "An EMF meter of your very own. We figured you'd need one if you're gonna be hunting with us. You know, so you can pull your own weight on hunts and everything."

Sam rolled his eyes. "What he means is, every member of the team should have one, and you're a member of the team."

She smiled up at them, her eyes shining.

"Aww, dude," Dean groaned, "you're not gonna freakin' _cry_, are ya?"

"I certainly am!" she exclaimed, hugging Sam and then a reluctant Dean. But she didn't cry after all. She just thanked them again and told them how touched she was.

"You've gotta be the oddest girl I've ever met," Dean commented. "Most chicks want, like, flowers and jewelry and shit. Never thought I'd see a woman so excited to get an Electromagnetic Field Meter for her birthday."

"Yeah, well, I'm not most girls," she retorted, hopping out of bed and heading toward the kitchen. "Besides, I'm used to functional gifts. Usually for birthdays and anniversaries, Isaac would get me stuff like a vacuum cleaner or a slow cooker. For Valentine's Day, he finally got me the Kitchen-Aid stand mixer I'd been coveting for years, and I fully intend to use it now to make you guys pancakes for brunch."

Sam jumped in her path. "Unh-uh, you're not cooking today. We're taking you to lunch for your birthday."

"Really?" she asked, surprised.

"Yep," Dean cut in. "Someplace nice, too."

"Yeah? Cobb Lane? Café Dupont? Ocean?" She continued to fire the names of upscale Birmingham restaurants at him until he held up a hand to get her to stop.

"Okay, I've never heard of those, but while we were driving around the other day, I noticed a place that I thought you would like…Cracker Barrel." He announced it with a big grin as though proud that he'd thought of it. She didn't have the heart to tell him that Cracker Barrel was not exactly what she'd thought of when he said it was a "nice" place. She just exclaimed how much she loved Cracker Barrel – which she did, actually, if only because they sold such beautiful cast-iron skillets in the store – and tried not to laugh at the expression on Sam's face. Apparently he hadn't been aware that Dean considered Cracker Barrel a "nice" restaurant either. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to either of them, though. This was, after all, Dean Winchester. He could barely be bothered to chew with his mouth closed. A connoisseur of fine dining he was not. So Melody hid her amusement and went off to get ready, still smiling about her new EMF meter. She was tempted to walk through her subdivision with it that night, just to see if there might be anything around to hunt. That could be fun…

The trio passed the day peacefully. Melody received birthday phone calls throughout the day from family and friends. Early in the evening, as she sat in her living room watching a movie with the boys, her grandmother called. Melody let her get through her standard warbling rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" – complete with a jazzy and entirely off-key "and many moooooore!" at the end – before commenting, "I take it Mama didn't tell you."

"Tell me what, dear?" Rose asked.

Melody sighed, and walked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her for a bit of privacy. She didn't really want to be doing this over the phone. "My eyes turned blue a couple of days ago, Grandma." There was dead silence on the other end. "Grandma?"

"So it's you, then. Maggie explained it all to you?"

"Yes."

"Who are your charges?"

"Sam and Dean Winchester."

A gasp on the other end. "_John_ Winchester's boys?"

"The very ones."

"Melody, I don't…" Rose stifled a sob before continuing. "I'm so sorry."

"Oh, Grandma," she sighed. "What do you have to be sorry about? This isn't a bad thing, and even if it were, it wouldn't be your fault. This is fate. It's my destiny, what I'm supposed to be doing. And yeah, it's dangerous, in more ways than one. But Grandma, I get to help keep the world safe. I get to be a police officer and a firefighter and a soldier, all rolled up into one! The gift you passed down to me is…God, I don't even have words to describe how happy I am about it. Please don't be upset, and don't worry about me. The boys and I will take care of each other, just like you and Gramp took care of each other, just like Zelda and her charge take care of each other. This is how it's meant to be."

"I know that, baby. I don't have to like it, though. I don't want you to constantly be in danger." She paused for a moment before continuing. "I always sort of thought you'd be the one Chosen, though. God bless 'em, but none of your cousins have enough sense for this kind of work, and your poor sister's just not cut out for it. Too accustomed to comfortable living." Both women laughed at that. It was completely true. Miriam couldn't tell you the difference between a rifle and a revolver, but she could easily name off every designer Saks Fifth Avenue carried, as well as the defining features of their latest lines.

The two women chatted a bit longer before Rose signed off, instructing her granddaughter again to be careful. As she hung up the phone, she noticed that her hands were shaking just a bit, and she felt a tingling sensation behind her eyes. She barely had time to register it before her vision blurred and her muscles went limp, causing her to slide from her seat on the bed to the floor. A searing pain shot through her temples, more severe than anything she had ever experienced, and she shrieked in agony even as she tried to fight the sensations that had taken over her body.

Sam and Dean burst into the room at the sound of her piteous cries, guns drawn. Sam was the first to realize what was happening, and he raced to her side. He knelt beside her on the floor and pulled her shuddering form close to his chest. The pain was so overwhelming that she couldn't scream anymore. She could only whimper and gasp, her body wracked with bouts of nausea as she felt the…whatever it was…overtake her. The last thing she heard before losing control entirely was Sam's voice, whispering softly and insistently that it was okay, she was just having a vision, and it would be easier if she would just let it come.

Before she had a chance to take his advice, it became a moot point. She lost her battle with the intense pain in her head and was forced to stop fighting as a series of images began to play out before her eyes.

_The trio of hunters crept slowly up the front steps of a darkened house. Melody looked up and admired the intricate detail of the wrought-iron railing surrounding the balcony overhead. She caught a whiff of jasmine on the air and paused to consider how absolutely ridiculous it was that, instead of simply admiring this beautiful setting, she was stalking an angry spirit intent on death and destruction. Dean cautiously pushed open the door and slipped into the house. Melody took one last longing glance along the quiet street before walking into the house ahead of Sam. _

_She jumped as the door slammed shut behind Sam and the room temperature suddenly plummeted. Melody watched her breath appear before her face and tightened her grip on her shotgun. Without warning, both men were suddenly hurled across the room and pinned to the wall opposite her. Melody, meanwhile, was knocked to the floor, her gun spinning across the dusty hardwood to land several feet out of her reach. The spectral figure of a man flickered into being near her and crouched menacingly over her cowering form. His skin was deathly pale, but she could tell from his features that he was of mixed race. A mulatto, or perhaps a quadroon. He was dressed in a three-piece suit that looked to stem from the early twentieth century – and the shriveled chicken foot hanging from the black cord around his neck provided a striking counterpoint to his debonair attire - but the dark gleam in his eyes was from a decidedly older and darker time. _

"_Ah, ma belle," he crooned viciously, "Do not shy away now. You came to see the conjure man? Well, je suis ici." He leaned closer and fairly purred in her ear, "Oui, cherie, I can solve all your problems…and I know just what I will take from you as payment." He ran a startlingly solid hand from her knee, up her thigh, across her hip, and up her torso to rest heavily on her breast, and laughed when Dean yelled for him to get his hands off her. He absently flicked his wrist and Dean and Sam both howled in agony, clutching at their heads. "You know, ma fille, a conjure man can do many things after death to please a woman that any other man could not do even in life. But I will show you rather than tell you." Melody whimpered as he lowered his head toward hers…_

As suddenly as it had begun, the vision ended. Melody opened her eyes to find herself lying in her own bed, breathing heavily. Her head felt as though it had been run through a meat grinder, but at least she was no longer being sexually assaulted by a dead man. Low voices carried in to her through the closed bedroom door. A moment later, the door opened, and Dean and Sam both walked in.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked upon seeing that she was awake.

She tried to sit up, but it only made her head spin, so she settled back against the pillows. "Uhh…I think I will be once the room stops moving. Can I have some aspirin and a shot of tequila, please?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Uhh…no. You can have aspirin, but I think maybe you oughta hold off on the hard liquor for a little while."

Too exhausted to argue, she just nodded.

"So," Sam said, walking out of her bathroom with a bottle of Tylenol, "what was the vision about?"

She took the bottle from him and dry swallowed a handful of pills before shaking her head. "Give me a few minutes to sort it out in my mind, then I'll tell you all about it."

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "Well, we got a call from Ellen while you were out of it. Apparently, there's some kind of evil befalling residents and visitors in the Garden District of New Orleans. Four killed in the past week alone. We thought maybe we could head down there to check it out."

Melody groaned. "What?" he asked. "You don't like New Orleans?" He grinned lecherously. "Scared you're gonna get plastered and end up flashing everybody like the other girls?"

She rolled her eyes, but ignored his statement. "I love New Orleans. Just not looking forward to what's waiting for us there this time." She sighed heavily and pushed herself into a sitting position. "It's what my vision was about. I gathered that we're after the spirit of a conjure man. This is no run-of-the-mill ghost, kids, so we need to be on top of our game. We seek him out at a house near the corner of Prytania and Philips. I'm assuming something of his is there that needs to be salted and burned." She paused for a moment. "Guys, you should know that this ghost…well, he's bad news. Really, really bad news."

"What does that mean?" Dean asked.

"Well, for one thing, he's damn near corporeal. You can tell he's not all there when you look at him, but he's plenty solid enough to physically touch. Plus, he's telekinetic in a way that I've only seen from demons. Well, and Max. And Sam, that one time."

"Wait, how did you know…oh, never mind."

"Why do I get the feeling there's something more that you're not saying?" Sam asked.

She hesitated, then took a deep breath. "When we went into the house…he, uhh…he sort of assaulted me."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "You mean he attacked you? 'Cause that's kinda what angry spirits do, Mel."

She glared at him. "Yeah, thanks for clearing that up for me, Sam," she said sarcastically. "That's not the kind of assault I was talking about." Both men looked mystified. She sighed, exasperated. "The fucking dead guy felt me up, okay? Said something about how he intended to please me in ways that live men never could. I'm happy to say that the vision ended before he could show me exactly what he meant, but I've got some ideas, and I don't think I like any of them."

Sam and Dean both looked shocked. "So," Dean said slowly, "the ghost wants to…"

"Yeah. The ghost wants to screw me. And I'm not so much interested in the dead men, so if we could be on top of things this time around, you know, to make sure none of the icky sex-with-spirits stuff goes on, that'd be just super."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"Well," Sam said, "I guess we'll just have to make sure we really do our research so we can get in there and get the job done before any…unpleasantness…arises."

"Works for me. You guys ready to go?"

"Go? You just had a vision, are you sure you don't want to rest?"

"That's nice of you, Sam, but I'm fine. New Orleans is less than five hours from here, and I'd like to get there and get this taken care of before Papa Pervert kills anybody else. Give me five minutes, and we can hit the road."

True to her word, five minutes later, she was locking her front door and tossing her bag into the trunk of the Impala. It was time for Melody and her charges to hit the road.


	6. Room in the Inn

The lights of New Orleans came into view through the Impala's windshield a little before midnight. Dean was at the wheel, Sam dozing beside him. Melody had spent most of the trip stretched across the backseat resting after her vision, but as the hunters neared the city, she dragged herself upright and started singing along with the AC/DC blaring from the car's speakers. Dean pulled into the parking lot of the first hotel he found that looked to be in a moderately safe area of town. New Orleans had never been particularly safe or wholesome, but after Hurricane Katrina had devastated the city, the criminal element had exploded as most of the rest of the citizens fled the region. Melody, having grown up along the Gulf Coast, had spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans while growing up, traveling to the city at least once or twice a year. But she hadn't been back since the storm and wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Dean opened his car door, but didn't get out right away. "So, I guess this probably isn't how you thought you'd be spending the night of your twenty-fourth birthday," Dean commented, looking at her in the rearview mirror. She met his eyes for a moment, then glanced away.

"No, I guess it's not. But with everything that's been going on recently, I'm slowly learning to expect the unexpected." She climbed out of the backseat to accompany him into the hotel lobby to get a room, leaving Sam asleep in the front seat.

Dean asked for two rooms, but Melody interrupted to say that just one room with two beds would be fine. Dean raised an eyebrow. "No point in wasting money on two rooms when one will do just as well," she murmured. "I don't mind sleeping on the floor." Dean quickly paid for the room, then went back to the car to wake Sam and grab their gear.

"You're not sleeping on the floor," Dean commented, handing her the duffel bag she had hurriedly packed.

"Why not?"

Sam walked around to the trunk and accepted the bag his brother handed him. "Why would she be sleeping on the floor?"

"She demanded that we get one room instead of two -"

"It only makes sense, Dean," she argued. "You know hunting isn't a steady paying gig. Sure, it's _possible_ to get by on fake credit cards and hustling, but there's really no reason to spend more than we have to. Can you imagine how the costs will add up if you have to get me my own room for every hunt we go on?"

"Yeah, I know that, but it's rare to find a room with three beds, and I don't really want one of us on the floor every night."

"I told you, Dean, I don't mind sleeping on the floor. And if it bothers you so much, we can share beds. You and Sam can sleep in one, I'll take the other."

"No," Sam cut in firmly.

"Hell, no," Dean agreed.

Melody just rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll sleep with one of you then. I don't kick or snore, and I only bite when bitten."

"Uh…I don't know if that's a good idea either," Sam said.

"Why not? What's wrong with that idea? Surely at least one of you doesn't mind sharing a bed."

Dean snorted. She shot him a hard look. "Yes, Dean, we all know that you share a bed more often than the average unmarried man. But I'm talking about _sleeping_. Anyway, it might be a moot point. There may well be a sofa I can sleep on. Surely you won't object to that." Without a backward glance, she shouldered her bag and marched over to their room. Upon unlocking the door and turning on the light, she found that there was, in fact, a small loveseat in addition to the two beds. It wouldn't be the most comfortable place she had ever slept, but she was far shorter than either of the guys, and she could make it work. "See?" she called over her shoulder. "Three perfectly good sleeping spaces. Aren't you glad I didn't let you waste the money on an extra room?" She dropped her bag on the loveseat and called for the first shower, disappearing quickly into the bathroom.

Dean and Sam looked at each other as the shower started up behind the closed bathroom door. "Flip you for the other bed," Sam said.

"What are you talking about? She said she wanted the sofa."

"Dean, come on, we're not really making her sleep on that tiny-assed loveseat, are we?"

"Hey! She asked for it!"

Sam just stared at his brother and pulled out a coin. "Heads or tails?"

Dean heaved a beleaguered sigh. "Tails."

The flip came up tails, and Sam swore under his breath.

"You know, Sammy, you really don't have to sleep on that thing. She said she would take the sofa."

Sam, not bothering to reply, just moved his belongings onto the sofa and put Melody's bag on the bed farthest from the door. Sitting down on the loveseat to take off his boots, he asked, "Dude, why'd you let her talk you into getting just one room? You know how cramped it is with just the two of us, and we've lived our whole lives in places like this. Now you wanna add a woman to the mix? It's bound to raise difficulties."

"Not like I could have talked her out of it. She's got a point, too. It's hard enough to make ends meet already, there's no way we could afford to get two rooms everywhere we go. Besides, I want to make sure we can keep an eye on her."

"I dunno, Dean, I think she's proven that she can take care of herself."

"That's not what I'm talking about," he said darkly.

"Then what _are_ you talking about?" Both men whipped around to find Melody standing in the bathroom's doorway, wrapped in a towel. For a second, neither man spoke. Droplets of water from her wet hair traced patterns across the soft skin of her arms and disappeared into the valley between her breasts, barely covered by the thin cotton of her towel. Sam cleared his throat and looked away, blushing. Dean, of course, simply raised an eyebrow and smirked. Melody took a step forward. "I asked you a question, Dean."

He pulled his gaze from the miles of golden brown skin extending from the bottom of her wrap and back up to her face. "Look, Mel, you've gotta admit that this whole thing is pretty suspect." She raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. "I mean, we show up at your door on what's supposed to be simple research for a simple werewolf hunt, and you know everything about us? And then we find that you're supposed to _protect_ us? To come with us everywhere we go? I'll admit that I don't get any creepy or dangerous vibes from you or anything, but it takes a lot more than a sudden change in eye color to gain my trust."

Sam looked at his brother as though he had sprouted horns. "Dean, have you forgotten that she put herself in harm's way on that werewolf hunt? I mean, for God's sake, man, she pulled her own weight and then some! How can you say you don't trust her?"

Melody shook her head and sank down on the edge of her bed, pulling the towel more tightly around her. "It's okay, Sam. Honestly, I've been wondering when this would come up. I mean, I'm surprised that you two have gone along with this whole thing as easily as you have. You've both been doing this long enough to know to watch yourselves. You have no way of really knowing that I am who I claim to be. I mean, my mom showing up to explain the whole Guardian thing? That could easily have been a set-up. I was actually pretty shocked that you went along with it, no questions asked."

The men looked at each other for a long moment before Dean spoke up. "Actually, we didn't go along with it no questions asked. We called some old friends to see what they knew about this whole Guardian thing as soon as your mom left. It _did_ seem pretty questionable, so we did some research and found out that the whole thing checked out. There's no way we would have brought you along on this hunt otherwise."

She picked at the blanket. "Oh."

Sam came over to sit beside her. "You're not mad about that, are you? I mean, like you said, we know better than to take the word of strangers at face value."

"No, I know. It's fine, really. You did the right thing. You can never be too safe in this line of work." She looked up at Sam. "Who'd you call? To ask about Guardians, I mean."

"Two old friends of the family. Bobby Singer and Missouri Mosely. Bobby's a hunter, and Missouri's -"

"A psychic, I know," she cut in. A smile spread across Melody's face. "How are Bobby and Missouri doing?"

"You know them?" Dean asked.

"Well, only through you two. I know enough to know that they can be trusted. I'm really looking forward to meeting them."

"Huh," Dean grunted.

"Missouri's good," Sam told her. "She knew something strange was going on with us, but she wasn't sure what it was until we told her about you. She confirmed the Guardian bit and wants to meet you soon. I got the impression that there were some things she wanted to talk to you about. And Bobby's doing fine. He stuck around with Ellen for awhile, helped her rebuild the Roadhouse, near the old site. Now he's hunting, traveling around, sending back the demons that escaped when Jake opened the gates of Hell."

Melody nodded. She muttered to herself, "I wonder if Missouri knows why you needed _me_."

"What?" Sam asked, leaning in. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head and stood up. "It's nothing. I'm gonna get dressed for bed." With that, she stood and carried her bag back into the bathroom.

"What do you think is up with her?" Sam asked. "I mean, it's obvious why we would need a Guardian. We're _hunters_. We're kinda the reason that Guardians exist, right?"

"I thought it seemed more like she was wondering why we needed her in particular, as opposed to some other Guardian. 'Course, I don't see as we would need a Guardian at all. We've done fine so far. Managed to take out the Demon without any help, didn't we?"

Sam settled in on the loveseat. "Yeah, well. Maybe there's something else big coming up that we won't be able to take on alone."

Dean didn't reply, just sacked out across the bed closest to the door and began to flip absently through the television channels. Sam had just dozed off when Melody emerged from the bathroom again, dressed in boy shorts and a tank top. "What's he doing in my bed?" she asked.

"Too much of a gentleman to make you sleep on the sofa, I guess," Dean replied. He stood and headed for the bathroom, leaving Mel to climb into the other bed. In the shower, he tried to avoid it, but couldn't stop himself from thinking about what he and Sam had discussed. Why _did_ they need a Guardian? Dean had always been Sam's protector. Not for the first time, he wondered if Melody wasn't meant to be his replacement. After all, once his year was up, Sammy would be on his own. He groaned. He'd managed to bring his brother back from the dead, but what good would it do if after a year he had to turn Sam's care over to this woman? Sure, she knew her way around a gun, and she had balls for days. But could he really leave his baby brother's well-being in the hands of a lawyer-turned-housewife?

Shaking his head, he stepped out of the shower. There was no point dwelling on this right now. They were on a hunt, and he needed to get some rest so they could figure out the next day how to put down this spirit.


	7. NOLA

**A/N: There is disturbing and explicit sexual conduct herein. It was difficult for me to write. If sexual assault gives you nightmares, you might want to skip the first part of this chapter.**

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"_Ah, ma belle," he crooned viciously, "Do not shy away now. You came to see the conjure man? Well, je suis ici." He leaned closer and fairly purred in her ear, "Oui, cherie, I can solve all your problems…and I know just what I will take from you as payment." He ran a startlingly solid hand from her knee, up her thigh, across her hip, and up her torso to rest heavily on her breast, and laughed when Dean yelled for him to get his hands off her. He absently flicked his wrist and Dean and Sam both howled in agony, clutching at their heads. "You know, ma fille, a conjure man can do many things after death to please a woman that any other man could not do even in life. But I will show you rather than tell you." Melody whimpered as he lowered his head toward hers._

_She was frozen in place, able to look at him, to see every malevolent and lustful expression that played across his nearly translucent features, but unable to move a muscle. She felt his lips brush across her jaw, and felt a tear leak from the corner of her eye. She couldn't reach out for the gun she had dropped. Couldn't even scream. This monster had her completely at his mercy. And by the methodical manner in which the spirit was removing her clothing, she knew that whatever he intended to do to her, he intended to do right there in front of Sam and Dean. And that somehow made it worse, even though she knew for a fact that this creature would kill them all before the night was over._

_In spite of herself, she looked over to where Dean and Sam were pinned against the opposite wall, expecting to see them struggling to get free, to help her. Instead, with horror, she realized that neither of them was moving. Invisible bonds still held them both against the wall, but long slashes had appeared across their throats, and blood dripped from the wounds into a receptacle that she had just noticed at their feet. She could see from across the room that both men were deathly pale, and she wondered how much time had passed since the ghost had done this to them. So intent had she been on escaping the conjure man's grasp that she had not noticed when Sam and Dean had gone silent. Their heads slumped against their chests, but she had no idea whether they were dead or just unconscious._

_As she lay paralyzed and cold on the floor, she realized that she had broken a promise to herself. She had sworn that she would never be helpless like this again. Not like this. But as she lay naked and unable to fight, she realized that, despite all her promises to herself, all her self-defense classes, all her careful attention to her surroundings…here she was again. Lying helpless underneath a man intent on only one thing. As the spirit manipulated her body into the position in which he wanted her and released his swollen member from his own clothes, she squeezed her eyes shut. Then, as he pushed himself inside of her, he released his unnatural hold on her ability to vocalize, and she let out an anguished, earth-shattering scream…_

Sam had awakened from the light slumber his uncomfortable position on the loveseat permitted at the first sound of her whimpers. Unsure if it was a vision or just a nightmare, he moved cautiously to her side and placed a hand on hers, which rested on her stomach on top of the sheet in which she was wrapped. Leaning closer, he saw that her eyes were wide open and glazed over. She seemed to be looking right through him. A vision, then. And a bad one, if the expression on her face was any indicator. Knowing that there was nothing he could do for her until the vision ran its course, he simply rubbed her hand and waited for it to pass. For several long minutes, she simply stared out into space and made small noises of distress. She didn't move, and she didn't speak or cry out. Then, suddenly, she let out an ear-splitting wail of pain and arched off the bed.

She snatched her hand away from Sam and moved as far away from him as she could get, muttering, "No, not again, not again, not again, please, God help me…"

Dean had awakened at her scream and was brandishing the knife that he kept under his pillow. Sam, meanwhile, was reaching out for her, making soothing noises in an attempt to calm her. He went to put his hand on her leg, but she jerked back so violently that she fell off the other side of the bed, landing in a tangle of sheets and limbs, wedged between the bed and the wall. "No!" she cried. "Stay away from me!" She looked frantically around the room, as if in search of a weapon.

"Mel!" Sam called insistently. "It's just me, you're okay, please calm down!" By that time, Dean had realized what was going on and put his knife away. He walked around Melody's bed to try and help her up, but backed away when she cringed against the wall. She was still on the floor, but had managed to disentangle herself from the sheets. She wedged herself into the corner and pulled her knees in to her chest in an attempt to make herself as small as possible. She was still crying, and whispering words that sounded to Sam like, "Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't touch me, I said 'no.'" She showed no signs of knowing who Sam and Dean were.

"Dude, what's wrong with her?" Dean asked, puzzled.

"I don't know. She was having a vision, then all of a sudden, she screamed and came out of it. But, man, if I didn't know better, I'd say that she still doesn't know that whatever it was is over."

"You think it's her same vision from before?"

"Yeah, I do. And I think she got more out of it this time, if what she's saying is any indication."

Dean stopped to listen to her words. "Fuck." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Dammit, Sammy, we've gotta get rid of that spirit so she can stop having this vision. Something like this is bound to drive her completely nuts."

"Yeah. But we've also gotta make sure nothing in that vision comes true. Dude, we can't take her on this hunt. There's no way we can put her in that kind of danger."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that we're talking about Melody Justema, right? The girl who punched me for telling her she couldn't go on a werewolf hunt?"

"That was different. We didn't have any specific reason that she couldn't go on that one, just a general unfounded assumption that she wouldn't be able to handle herself. This is a very specific threat against her and only her. There's no way we can let her do this one with us, it's just too dangerous."

"I think I'm capable of deciding that for myself." The Winchesters turned to face Melody, who was still wedged into the corner between the bed and the wall, but had climbed to her feet and was trying to put her hair back into order and wipe the tears from her face.

"Mel, you've got to listen to reason. We can't let you -"

"Sam, I thought I had made it clear to you both before our last hunt that nobody _lets_ me do anything. This is not an issue which is up for debate. I'm the Guardian here. That means I guard you two. I'm going on this hunt with you, and we're all coming out of it." Without waiting for a response, she walked past them, making sure to give them a wide berth, and out the door of the hotel room. Sam made as if to follow her, but Dean pulled him back. "Give her a minute, Sam."

"We can't just let her wander around the streets of New Orleans alone at three in the morning!"

"She's barefoot, and wearing sleeping clothes. Somehow I don't think she's going much further than the door of this room."

Sam peeked out the curtain beside the door. Sure enough, Melody was sitting on the curb directly in front of the door, only a few feet away. She had her knees pulled up to her chin again, and she was rocking back and forth slightly.

"Give her some space, man. She'll talk about it when she's ready." With that, Dean climbed back into bed. Sam sat on the loveseat and listened as Dean's breathing evened out. Once he started to snore lightly, Sam looked at the clock and realized that Melody had been outside for half an hour. Opening the door, he saw that she was still sitting in the same spot, although she was no longer rocking. Instead, she stared out at the street, watching the light traffic pass the hotel.

"You should go back to sleep, Sam. I'll be fine." Turning to face him, she continued, "Take my bed, please. You're way too tall to be trying to sleep on that tiny little loveseat."

Ignoring her as though she had not spoken, Sam sat on the walkway beside her, carefully avoiding touching her or getting too close. She smiled faintly and scooted closer until the sides of their legs touched. Sam's mild surprise showed in his expression as he glanced quickly at her.

"I really am okay, Sam. I'm not gonna break." She looked down at her arms clasped around her knees and continued, "I didn't break when it was real. I'm certainly not going to fall apart when it's just a vision, something that has not and _will_ not happen."

Sam kept silent for a moment, then asked tentatively, "Does that mean you've been through something like this before?"

A sigh, followed by a long pause, and he wondered if she would answer. Then, "Date rape. I was seventeen, first semester of college. First month of college, in fact. Goodbye virginity, hello therapy," she quipped bitterly.

"Mel, I -"

"I don't want to talk about this, Sam. I went to therapy, and I _can_ talk about it, but I would really rather not."

"Okay."

After a few minutes of strained silence, she blurted out, "I'm scared, Sam. I'm really, really afraid of this hunt. I'm afraid of this _life_. I know I'm destined for it, and I trust that I wouldn't have been…assigned…to you and Dean if I were destined to let us all end up dead on my second hunt. But -" She broke off and dropped her head onto his shoulder. "Sammy, I wouldn't be given a vision I couldn't prevent, would I?"

He wrapped a long arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "I've been wondering that ever since I started getting visions of my own, Mel. And I haven't been unable to stop a single one yet."

"Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"Why am I with you?"

"What?" he asked sharply, looking down at her.

"You have visions of your own. Why do you need another precog?"

"Oh." He shook his head. "I don't know. I'm hoping Missouri will be able to shed some light on that."

"If we make it there."

"We'll make it there, Mel. We'll finish this hunt, and we'll go see Missouri. Everything will be fine."

She sighed heavily. "I don't even know how to start researching this spirit. I feel completely useless, Sam. I mean, what good are my visions if they don't give me anything I can _exploit_?"

"Well, maybe if you tell me exactly what you saw, we'll be able to pull out some clues together?"

"That's just the thing! I don't think I got anything new that's worth anything to us. We knew from the first vision where we're going and who we're hunting. The last one just showed me exactly what this creature wants to do to me, and how you and Dean are going to die!"

Sam looked at her sharply. "You saw us die?"

She blinked back tears and nodded sadly.

"Start at the beginning, Mel. I know this is hard for you to talk about, but I really need you to tell me everything. It's the only way to make sure we don't miss something important."

Just then, a car cruising past the hotel caught both Mel's and Sam's attention. A blonde and a redhead, each brandishing a bottle of bourbon, necks laden with Mardi Gras beads, stood with their tops halves visible through the sports car's open sunroof. As they slowly passed the hotel, both women lifted their tank tops, whooping and laughing at the top of their lungs. Melody clapped and waved, while Sam merely stared with flushed cheeks and shifted somewhat uncomfortably.

"Aww, Sammy, are you _blushing_?" she teased.

"No!" he protested.

"You're totally blushing."

Ignoring her comment, he replied, "You were pretty into that little show."

"It's New Orleans, baby. I love it here. Back in college, that would have been me showing off the goods. Hell, give me enough to drink, and it might be still."

Sam piqued an eyebrow.

Melody giggled at his expression. "Oh, keep yours pants on, Sammy, I'm not gonna flash you."

With his arm still around her, Sam turned her to face him. "Why not?" His tone was teasing, but his eyes were half-serious.

She had been so freaked out by her dream and her worries about her visions that she had almost forgotten where she was, and who was holding her close to his side. But now, with Sam's deep, soulful brown eyes locked on hers, his shaggy hair falling innocently across his forehead, his face so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek…her heart began to beat faster until she was sure that he could see her pulse fluttering in her throat. Forcing herself to respond in the same manner as he had, she teased, "Because you'd get all flustered and weirded out." Then she cringed inwardly at the breathiness in her voice.

With a sultry smile, he asked in a low voice, "Why does everybody always think that girls scare me? Just because I don't screw everything that walks like my brother doesn't mean that I can't appreciate a woman's body."

Her eyes slammed shut and she bit back a gasp as visions of him appreciating _her_ body raced through her brain. It was as if she had lost control over her own thoughts and feelings. _Well, shit, Mel. As if Dean practically crawling into your mouth the other night wasn't enough, Sam is now giving you the insane urge to jump him and fuck his brains out right here on the walkway._

Struggling to control her breathing, she forced her eyes to open. He was still looking at her with a half-smirk that somehow reminded her of the time that he had been possessed. She almost expected him to tie her to a post and torture her…and she found the thought irritatingly arousing. She always had been a fan of Evil!Sam. She murmured something unintelligible under her breath. Then, leaning even closer, Sam brushed her lips lightly with his own, and she was lost. Almost of their own volition, her fingers locked at the back of his neck, and she swung one leg across both of his to straddle his lap. He smiled smugly against her mouth and thrust his tongue between her lips, grabbing her hips and pulling her closer when she shuddered against him.

"Sam?" he heard distantly.

Pulling his mouth away from hers, he asked, "What?"

"Uhh…" she whispered against his lips, "that wasn't me." She reluctantly climbed off of him and ran a shaky hand through her hair, just as the door behind them opened and Dean emerged, clad only in boxers, a handgun at his side.

"Jesus, what are you two doing out here? Do you know what time it is?" he snapped.

"Chill out, Pop," Melody retorted. "We're big kids, remember? No curfew for us."

He rolled his eyes and laid the gun on a table just inside the doorway before stepping outside the room and taking in their rumpled appearances and still-ragged breathing. "Did I interrupt something?" he asked with an oddly forced smirk.

"Actually, yeah, you did," Sam barked. Dean raised his hands and made as if to step back into the room, but Melody cut in, "Yeah, I was just about to tell Sammy here about my latest body-snatching experience. But it can wait until morning. I recommend that you both go back to bed, 'cause I sure intend to. We've got work to do tomorrow…or later today, whatever." Ignoring both men's confused looks, she strode back into the hotel room and flopped down on the loveseat, pulling a blanket over herself and forcing herself to fall asleep. She would deal with her wacky emotions tomorrow.


	8. Feelings

"Well, that was easy enough," Sam commented, looking up from the laptop screen to peer across the table at Dean and Melody. His brother was shoveling syrup-drenched pancakes into his mouth at a mind-boggling rate of speed, while Melody looked on in amazement, her own half-eaten scrambled eggs completely forgotten in the face of the food-consumption machine that was Dean Winchester.

"What'd you find, Sammy?" Dean mumbled around a mouthful of breakfast.

"Don't talk with your mouth, full," Melody automatically instructed, at the same time that Sam just as robotically corrected, "My name is _Sam_." Dean shrugged both of them off.

Shaking his head, Sam continued, "I think I've figured out who we're dealing with." Turning the computer to face Dean and Melody, he said with a flourish, "Meet Ezekiel Valmont, known to the masses as Papa Zeke. Born Friday, the thirteenth of July 1832, died Friday, the thirteenth of October 1922-"

"Unh-uh," Melody interrupted, shaking her head. "This can't be the spirit I saw."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked. "This is definitely the guy, I mean look at this picture of him. This is exactly the man you described."

"Yeah, I know that. But this must be his ancestor or something. I mean, ghosts haunt in the form they were when they died, right?"

Both men nodded, confused. She raised an eyebrow. "Well, the guy in this picture," she said, pointing vehemently at the laptop screen, "looks _exactly_ like the spirit from my visions. And there's no fucking way that man is ninety years old."

"Huh," Dean grunted. "She's got a point, Sam."

"She _would_, except that this guy was one of the most powerful witch doctors ever to practice hoodoo in the United States. As far as anybody could tell, once he turned thirty, he stopped aging altogether. This photograph was taken when the man was in his late seventies!"

As Melody's eyes widened, a pensive look crossed Dean's face. Pushing aside his now-empty plate, he hefted John's journal onto the table and began to flip through it. Suddenly, he stopped at a page and let out an expletive.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

"Papa Zeke was the most powerful witch doctor active in New Orleans in his day. The craft had been passed down through his family for centuries. Upon his death, from pneumonia of all things, his remains were interred in secret, in a hidden room off the attic of his own house. This was done to keep both followers and enemies of the deceased conjure man from stealing portions of his anatomy as…mementos."

"Uh…yeah," Sam said, quickly scanning the contents of the still-open webpage. "Did Dad run across this character at some point?"

"Dad and I both did." He raised his eyes from the journal to stare at his brother. "Sam, this was the first hunt Dad brought me along for. I was thirteen. We left you with Bobby for a few days, came down, did the research, found out _exactly_ what you just read, and broke into the house one night. Dad had me do the salt and torch while he covered me with the shotgun." He shook his head angrily. "Fuck!" he exclaimed, running a tense hand through his short sandy hair. "I can't _believe_ we left before the job was done! Who knows how many people this monster has killed while we thought he was gone for good?"

"Hey," Melody interjected. "I may be new to this lifestyle, but I know enough about John Winchester to know that he would _never_ leave a job undone." She turned to face Dean more fully in his position beside her, but he stared blankly ahead, jaw clenched so tightly she could almost hear his teeth grinding against each other. Finally, she grabbed his chin and forcibly turned his head to face hers. Blue eyes locked with hazel as she said firmly, "If your dad said it was done, then it was done." She dropped her hand from his chin and grabbed Sam's computer, pulling it across the table toward her.

"If the job was done, then how can the spirit still be here?" Sam mused, staring into space as his long fingers drummed absently against the Formica tabletop.

For several long minutes, the trio of hunters was silent, save for Sam's fingers tapping the table and Melody's flying furiously across the laptop keyboard. Suddenly, she stopped and answered as though Sam's mostly rhetorical question had just been spoken. "The spirit isn't _still_ here. It's _back_ here."

Sam raised an eyebrow incredulously. "And just how did it manage that feat?"

"Actually, it had some help from our old buddy, Jake," she replied darkly, turning the laptop to face Sam again. "The four murders Ellen mentioned when she called you? They're just the tip of the iceberg. I've traced deaths fitting the same pattern back as far as the end of May. And I think we all know what happened back then to cause this kind of thing to start up." As Sam looked over the information onscreen, Melody nudged Dean with her right elbow and commented softly, "Before that, there's been nothing fitting the M.O. since 1992. Good job, Dean. On your first hunt, you prevented fifteen years worth of death and destruction. Not bad for a 13-year-old." She winked and smiled at the small arrogant smirk that crossed his face, and then shivered a bit at the sudden jolt of an emotion that felt like relief. _Why should I feel _relieved_ at making Dean feel better?_ Shrugging it off, she turned back to Sam, who had finished reading and was speaking again.

"Okay, so Dean and Dad sent old Zeke to hell back in '92 by burning his bones. Number one, if his bones were salted, how the hell is he maintaining his hold here? And number two, if his bones are already gone, how the hell are we supposed to get rid of him this time?"

The table fell silent again, and again, Melody was the first to break the quiet. "The answer to both questions may have something to do with where he's spent the past fifteen years," she ventured tentatively.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

Just then, the waitress, an exotic-looking 20-something brunette whose nametag proudly identified her as "Lisette," appeared beside the table. "Can I get y'all anything else?" she drawled, her voice sounding like sweaty dirty bayou sex. "More coffee?" Her eyes never left Sam's face.

"I could go for some more coffee," Dean replied, barely hiding a snicker.

"So could I," Melody chimed in, elbowing Dean in the ribs while trying to maintain a straight face herself.

Lisette never even looked in their direction. Instead, she leaned closer to Sam. "And what about you, _mon trésor_? Can I get anything for _you_?" she fairly purred. Sam turned multiple shades of red and stammered, "No, I'm fine, thanks." Lisette looked mildly disappointed, but straightened up with a smile and replied, "_Yeah_, ya are." Finally turning to Dean and Melody, she said, "I'll be right back with y'all's coffee." Then, with a lingering glance at Sam, she sauntered off to check on another table.

A wave of embarrassment tinged with vague unease washed over Melody, while a distinct, though mild, sense of annoyance niggled at the edge of her awareness. _Okay, dude, what the fuck is _up_ with this? Last night it was that overwhelming lust, so strong that I found myself acting on it with _Sam,_ and I don't even _like_ him that way…at least I didn't before last night. Then today, it was the relief, then embarrassment and unease, plus annoyance from what felt like a totally different source. What is going…_

"Oh, Jesus," she whispered, hands flying to her face as she shook her head in disbelief. "It's not possible!"

"What?" Sam and Dean asked in unison, both alarmed.

"Let me out," she demanded, shoving at Dean. He slid aside to let her out of the booth.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She stood beside him, skin pale, breath shallow.

"Phone," she choked out, holding out a cold, shaking hand.

"What do you-"

"Phone!" she yelled. Her tone brooked no argument and the suspicious film of moisture covering her eyes convinced him that he should do what she said. He handed over his cell phone, and she stormed out of the diner and over to the Impala without a backward glance. Once there, she propped herself against the trunk, where she scrolled through Dean's address book before placing a call and pressing the phone to her ear with trembling fingers.

"What the hell was that about?" Dean asked, confused.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Sam replied with a shrug.

Dean leaned back in his seat, folded his arms across his broad chest, and narrowed his eyes. "Well, shouldn't you know these things? I mean, are you or are you not the one that had his tongue down her throat last night?"

"I don't see where that's either relevant or any of your business, Dean."

Dean hadn't been sure before, but the shift in Sam's eyes as he spoke and the vague smile of reminiscence that crossed his brother's lips gave Dean the answer to his question. He found himself oddly annoyed. Again. "What's the deal, man? _You're_ the one hooking up with our Guardian and getting hit on by hot waitresses? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were turning into _me_."

Sam shuddered in mock disgust before turning his gaze back to Melody through the window. She had begun to pace back and forth, still speaking animatedly into the phone. Suddenly, Sam's attention shot back to his brother. "Dude, did _you_ hook up with her?" he asked suspiciously.

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He'd been hoping ever since the words left his mouth that Sam would fail to pick up on it. No such luck. "Actually," he hedged, "no. I just sort of … uhh…I helped her out with a small problem."

Sam merely raised an eyebrow and mimicked Dean's posture, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. Eventually, Dean caved and blurted out, "Look, Sam, it was no big deal. It was just, the night she got into it with that jerk at the bar? After you went to bed, she was talking about how grossed out she was about having made out with him. So I sorta…well…helped." Sam waited. "Jesus, Sam, I kissed her okay? You know, to help get that creepy accountant taste out of her mouth. It was no big deal, neither of us even mentioned it again. I'm assuming she's not into me, and she took it for what it was – nothing."

"I can't believe you, Dean!" Sam exploded. "This woman is going to be with us _indefinitely_! You can't just go around randomly making out with her! I mean, what if she _had_ been into you? I can't see how she could, knowing you the way she does, but what if she _had_? Do you have any idea how awkward that could have made this arrangement?"

"What's that supposed to mean, Sam? You can't see how she would be into me knowing me the way she does? I'm a good guy, I'm loveable!" Sam just looked at him. "Okay, fine, point taken. Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, Sammy, but you did the very same thing. And the same argument holds true. _Neither_ of us has any business getting involved with her. She's our _Guardian_ for Chrissakes! Damn it, Sammy, that makes her, like, our _mom_ or something!"

"If either of you starts calling me 'Mom,' a vengeful spirit from hell will be the very least of your worries." Both sets of eyes whipped to the side of the booth to find Melody standing there, still a bit pale and slightly shaky, but looking rather amused by their conversation.

"It's impolite to eavesdrop, Mel," Dean snapped, sliding over to let her sit beside him.

"Not when you're talking about _me_, it's not," she replied. As she plopped down, she grinned at him and cocked her head to the side. "So it _is_ possible to fluster the unflappable Dean Winchester…interesting."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Okay, guys, before we go on this hunt, we should probably get all this stuff out in the open."

"All what stuff?" Sam asked innocently.

She glared at him and shot back, "How about all the stuff you two were just _attempting _to talk about behind my back? Don't you go trying to pull a Dean on me and avoid talking about it. This involves all of us." She leaned back in her seat. "And Dean's right. Not that I was planning on it, but I can't be involved with either of you. It's just too dangerous."

"Dangerous? How so?" Sam asked.

"Well, for one thing, relationships are messy, and messiness in our personal lives takes our minds off the hunt. That can get us all killed. And I'm talking about casual relationships as well as serious ones. It's just too risky. Besides, nobody should _ever_ get involved with me, in any romantic capacity. It seldom ends well."

"What are you talking about?" Dean cut in.

"I'm talking about the fact that I'm not good with relationships with the opposite sex. I do things to screw it up. Chalk it up to fear of commitment, or just to the fact that I'm not a good girlfriend. Whatever. I'm untrustworthy."

"But you and Isaac were together for almost seven years," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, that's not for lack of me trying to get rid of him for at least six of those years," she shot back. "I tried my best to push him away, to give him a reason to break up with me. Because he certainly wasn't giving me any reasons to leave _him_. The guy was a fucking Boy Scout. He was perfect. It was obnoxious."

"You're not making any sense."

"I don't have to make sense. You just have to accept that, yeah, I kissed both of you. It was fun. And that's the end of that. We all have to live and work together, and I don't intend to screw things up for us."

Lisette finally appeared with Mel and Dean's coffee refills. Mel shifted uncomfortably in her seat as the waitress smiled predatorily at Sam, and breathed a sigh of relief as she walked away.

"Okay. So what was that phone call about?" Dean asked.

"It was nothing. I had a question for Missouri. She answered it. Everything is fine."

"Then why are your hands still shaking?"

She tightened her grip on her coffee cup and replied shortly, "Nerves. I'm nervous about this hunt. What do you say we get out of here and go back to the hotel? I'll tell you my theory when we get there." With that she downed the rest of the coffee and left the diner, sliding into the backseat of the Impala before either of her companions could even rise from the booth.

"That's a really strange girl," Dean commented.


	9. A New Kind of Evil

"That's ridiculous," Dean stated flatly. "Just because Cole did it on Charmed doesn't mean you can assume it's possible out here in the real world."

"You watched Charmed?" Sam and Melody asked the question in unison with identical expressions of barely-contained mirth.

Dean shrugged unrepentantly. "At least three hot chicks in every episode. Of course I watched. I just put it on mute most of the time."

"And the rest of the time, you took notes on Cole's return from the Demonic Wasteland with fancy new powers, I imagine," Melody quipped sarcastically.

"Whatever. You're the one suggesting that this ghost is part demon. Do you have any idea how crazy that is?"

"I'm _not_ suggesting that the ghost is part demon! All I'm saying is that he was incredibly powerful even before he died, and there's every reason to suspect that fifteen years in hell may have made him even more powerful and dangerous than before, okay?"

"Because he learned some new tricks from the demons keeping him company down there," Dean scoffed sarcastically.

"Sure, why not? How the hell _else_ could he have clawed his way up from the fiery depths both solid and telekinetic? I'm telling you, Dean, I've seen this spirit in action, not once, but twice, and I guarantee you the usual methods won't work here, because this is _not_ a usual hunt."

"Fine. What do you propose we do?"

"Well," she said slowly, "if he's taken on demonic powers and characteristics, maybe he's also taken on demonic weaknesses. How about we treat him the way we would a demon? That should take care of him for good, I would think. I mean, demonic powers or no, he's still a spirit, and spirits can't escape from hell without an open portal. Once we send him back, as long as no more Devil's Gates pop open, his ass will be stuck there for good this time."

"So what you're saying is that you think we should exorcize him?" Sam asked.

She nodded solemnly.

"And just how do we go about doing that?" Dean demanded. "If you're right about this whole thing, then he's not a demon, but he's not a spirit either. So how do we even know what exorcism to use?"

"Well, I think it's the demonic powers that are holding him here, so if we use the standard demon-banishing exorcism, from the _Rituale Romanum_, that should take care of that problem. And he can't stay on this plane as a spirit, because Dean salted and burned his body already."

"Would you happen to have a plan for getting us close enough to exorcize him without getting killed or otherwise injured?"

Sam cut in to answer that one. "I think a Devil's Trap around the house should hold him, and salt and goofer dust ought to protect us."

"Salt _and_ goofer dust?" Melody asked. "I don't think those mix, Sam. If you put salt in goofer dust, they'll probably cancel each other out. Goofer dust can't be made with anything as pure as salt."

"I didn't say anything about mixing them. I was thinking more along the lines of goofering him first, and then shooting him with the salt." She nodded in response.

"Care to explain why you know how to make goofer dust?" Dean asked.

Melody was sprawled across Dean's bed on her stomach, her ankles crossed in the air behind her. Sam sat at the battered table, laptop open in front of him. Dean had been pacing the room, but now he dropped onto the bed next to Melody. She looked up at him sheepishly before answering his question.

"I've done my fair share of research into the things you two have hunted in the past. After your first run-in with a crossroads demon, I got interested in hoodoo and similar practices. So I learned about Candomblé and Santería, and Obeah, too, just to be well-rounded. And of course, I already had some small working knowledge of hoodoo. I mean, you don't grow up along the Gulf Coast without picking up a little something about conjuration." She rolled over onto her back and stretched languorously. "Anyway, yeah, pretty much everything you two have hunted in the past two years? I've learned everything about it that my readily available sources could teach me. I mean, I haven't had access to any hunters' journals or even any particularly reliable grimoires, so a lot of my information is probably wrong. But…I guess even when I thought you two were fictional, I still wanted to understand what you were up against."

She shifted her position until she could rest her head on Dean's knee. He looked at her in surprise, but didn't try to break the contact. Instead, he began to run his fingers through her hair. She sighed in contentment and wrapped both arms around the leg on which her head lay, hugging it close as if it were a pillow.

Sam looked up from checking his e-mail and his eyes narrowed at the sight of them, but Melody's eyes were closed and she looked about ready to doze off. Dean just shrugged a shoulder at his brother and continued playing with her hair. Shaking his head, Sam turned his eyes back to the computer screen.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Sammy," Mel muttered without opening her eyes. "We're being purely platonic over here."

"I didn't say you were being anything else," he snapped.

"You didn't have to. Your aura looks pissed off." She decided against mentioning that his "aura" was also green with envy. He was angry enough without her calling him on his jealousy.

"His _aura_ looks pissed off?" Dean asked with a smirk, his fingers stilling against her forehead for a moment before resuming their soothing movements. "What, are you going all New Age on us or something?"

"Oh yeah, baby. I'm breaking out the healing crystals any second now," she shot back sarcastically, but good-naturedly. "No, seriously, I can feel him shooting daggers across the room at us. You better watch it, Sam. If you maim your Guardian, who's gonna take care of you two?"

"We've managed on our own for the past two years," he fired back at her.

"Yeah, well, now you don't have to, because you've got me." His anger was starting to rub off on her, but she struggled against it, knowing that he wasn't really angry with her, he was just frustrated with the entire situation. Dean frowned as her arms tightened around his leg.

"Who says we need or want you?" he retorted.

"Dude-," Dean interjected.

Fuck fighting the anger. "Just what are you trying to say, Sam?" Melody asked in a dangerously quiet voice, extricating herself from Dean and sitting up in bed to face Sam head-on.

"I'm saying that we did just fine for a very long time without a 'Guardian.'" He sneered the word as if it were a curse, and Dean cringed at the flash of cold anger in Melody's eyes as Sam continued. "So you can just stop with the trying to act like you're God's gift to the Winchesters, okay? If that were the case, you'd have been there to stop Dean from trading his soul for my life, stop me from dying in the first place. Hell, if your 'protection' were worth a damn, you'd have been there the night the yellow-eyed demon killed our mom and set us on this crazy fucking path to start with!"

And with that, the anger drained from Melody's body. Yes, Sam was pissed. But not at her, not really. He was angry with life in general. Every person he had ever loved had been taken away from him, and his brother was next. Underneath the anger, there was a deep despair. So much anguish for one man to have to carry, so much hurt and guilt and longing. There was also fear. Sam was terrified, and Melody was willing to bet that the greatest contributing factor was Dean's impending demise. Yet again, she felt the crushing urge to figure out a way to help him. To help both of them.

With a sigh, she stood from the bed and walked over to kneel in front of Sam, who was still seething. He tried to resist, but she took both of his hands in hers and held them while looking up at him earnestly. "Believe me, Sammy, I was only two months old, but if I could have, I would have faced hell itself to keep this from happening to your family. I would give _anything_ to give you back you mom, and your dad, and Jessica, and Pastor Jim, and Ash, and everyone else that's been taken away from you. If I could, Sam, I'd have given you and Dean the chance to just be kids instead of warriors-in-training. But all I can do is try to make it better from now on, and you have to trust me to do that." Her voice cracked with emotion, and she almost wept with relief as she felt the anger drain from him to be replaced with remorse, probably over the things he had said to her.

"I know I'm inexperienced, Sam, and I know my presence here makes things…awkward, in a lot of ways. It's a big adjustment for the two of you. I don't know who sent you to my door, and I don't know why _I_ was chosen for you, out of all the other potential Guardians out there. But I _do _know that I care deeply about both of you, and I have faith that whoever or whatever arranged us this way knew what they were doing. I will do my best to keep you both safe and to make sure that this life doesn't take anything else from you. And Sam? That includes your brother."

She glanced over at Dean from her position at Sam's feet. The elder Winchester stared blankly ahead. The tight set of his jaw was the only indication that he had even heard her. "I mean that, Dean. You may be resigned to the deal you made, but damn it, I'm stubborn and I accustomed to getting my fucking way. We. Will. Not. Lose. You. That's a promise you can take to the bank." Glancing back at Sam, she saw that he was desperately fighting to keep his face from crumbling. Forcing a smile, she added lightly, "That is, if you could walk into a bank without being arrested on sight." That did it. Sam let out a snort, and she smiled gently and released his hands.

"Dude, did you just snort?" Dean teased.

"Dude, did you just fail to protest vehemently about the chick-flick moment that just went down here?" Sam shot back.

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

They both looked at Mel in concern as she gasped sharply. Her hands flew to her mouth and tears sprang to her eyes. "What is it?" Sam asked, laying a hand on her shoulder.

She shook her head. "No, no, it's fine, I just… Well, I've never heard the two of you do that in person before. It's…well, it's kinda surreal. Like I'm just now actually grasping the fact that I'm here with you."

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked, confused.

She let out a sigh. "That thing you just did. You called him a bitch and he called you a jerk. It's just something that is so uniquely…I don't know, 'Sam and Dean,' I guess. It's sort of amazing to me." The Winchesters nodded sympathetically, but it was obvious that they still had no clue what she was talking about. Mel shrugged it off and made Dean a list of things she would need from one of the many occult stores in the area.

"Mel, do you seriously need all this shit just to make goofer dust? Why don't we just buy some pre-made?"

She cocked her head to the side, set her hands on her hips, and glared at him. "I don't make cornbread out of Jiffy Mix, and I don't use store-bought goofer dust. It's bad enough having to buy rattler skin, but I just don't have the time right now to go kill a snake, skin it, and dry it out before tonight." She shook her head in dismay. "Honestly, Dean, sometimes I don't see how you've managed to stay alive this long. This is _way_ too important to leave in the hands of strangers. I mean, who knows if they even put real graveyard dust in that ready-made crap? Jesus, it's like letting somebody else pack your parachute before skydiving!"

The look on Dean's face was priceless. Sam burst into laughter. "Dude, you just got hunting advice from a girl who's only been doing this for, like, a week."

"Shut up, Sam. Just go with her to get the graveyard dust, and meet me back here in two hours."

Once Dean was gone, Melody and Sam set out for the graveyard nearby. "So," Sam hedged.

"So?"

"About last night…"

Her steps faltered, but she refused to stop walking. "Last night was great, Sam. But I meant what I said this morning…"

"No, I know, and I completely agree with you. I actually wanted to apologize. I mean, I knew even last night that it was a bad idea. Because of our…working relationship. And because I don't really get the impression that you think of me in _that_ way."

"Well, I didn't think I thought of you in _that_ way, either, but I gotta say Sammy, I see you a little differently now. Less like a brother, more like…well, anyway. I mean, that obviously doesn't change anything, because we _do_ still have to work together. And live together. And fight evil together. As much as it irks me, Dean was absolutely right. Being your Guardian makes me the functional equivalent of a parent to you two. Yeah, I know how stupid that is, considering that I'm younger than both of you. But that's just how it is. You still can't call me 'Mom,' at least not unless you want to get punched in the mouth. But my job _is_ to keep you alive and out of trouble." She shook her head. "Anyway, there's nothing to apologize for Sam. If things were different, yeah, I'd jump the hell outta you right about now. But it is what it is. It was fun while it lasted, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it was." They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes. Just as the cemetery came into view, Sam asked slyly, "So who's the better kisser, me or Dean?"

She punched him on the arm and scolded, "I thought you were a gentleman, Sam Winchester. You know a lady never kisses and tells!"

"Oh, come on, I won't tell him you told me."

"No way am I answering that. Hell, I wouldn't even know how to."

"Does that mean we're both equally good?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it just means that your techniques are so wildly different that they defy comparison."

"Whatever. You just don't wanna admit I'm better. You think I'll gloat."

"No. I think Dean would gloat if I told him _he_ were better. I'd like to think you're above that sort of behavior. You're a nice guy, remember?"

"Yeah, well, don't they say nice guys finish last?"

She slipped an arm around his waist and leaned against him until he pulled her close to his side. Half expecting to feel a surge of desire, she was pleasantly surprised when she only experienced comfort and peace. "I don't think that will hold true for you, Sammy. I'm pretty sure you'll finish somewhere near the top."


	10. Meet Papa Zeke

The trio of hunters crept slowly up the front steps of a darkened house. Melody looked up and admired the intricate detail of the wrought-iron railing surrounding the balcony overhead. She caught a whiff of jasmine on the air and paused to consider how absolutely ridiculous it was that, instead of simply admiring this beautiful setting, she was stalking an angry spirit intent on death and destruction. Dean cautiously pushed open the door and slipped into the house. Melody took one last longing glance along the quiet street before walking into the house ahead of Sam.

She barely had time to take in the dusty, completely bare room before the door slammed shut behind Sam and the room temperature suddenly plummeted. Melody watched her breath appear before her face and tightened her grip on her shotgun. Without warning, both men were suddenly hurled across the room and pinned to the wall opposite her. Melody, meanwhile, was knocked to the floor, her gun spinning across the dusty hardwood to land several feet out of her reach. The spectral figure of a man flickered into being near her and crouched menacingly over her cowering form. His skin was deathly pale, but she could tell from his features that he was of mixed race. A mulatto, or perhaps a quadroon. He was dressed in a three-piece suit that looked to stem from the early twentieth century – and the shriveled chicken foot hanging from the black cord around his neck provided a striking counterpoint to his debonair attire - but the dark gleam in his eyes was from a decidedly older and darker time.

"Ah, _ma belle_," he crooned viciously, "Do not shy away now. You came to see the conjure man? Well, _je suis ici_." He leaned closer and fairly purred in her ear, "_Oui, cherie_, I can solve all your problems…and I know just what I will take from you as payment." He ran a startlingly solid hand from her knee, up her thigh, across her hip, and up her torso to rest heavily on her breast, and laughed when Dean yelled for him to get his hands off her. He absently flicked his wrist and Dean and Sam both howled in agony, clutching at their heads. "You know, _ma fille_, a conjure man can do many things after death to please a woman that any other man could not do even in life. But I will show you rather than tell you." Melody whimpered as he lowered his head toward hers. Out the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Dean and Sam held against the opposite wall by invisible bonds, blood slowly dripping from slashes across their throats.

As his cold lips made contact with the skin along the column of her throat, her trembling fingers sought the handle of the small blade secreted in its scabbard at her waist, and as Papa Zeke drew back from his malevolent caress, she struck out, slicing across the spirit's gullet. He grabbed at the wound, pain and surprise etched on his pallid features, and she took the opportunity to scramble away, toward her gun and the bag of supplies Sam had dropped beside the front door. Hearing a dull thud behind her, she spared a glance to see Sam and Dean slumped on the floor across the room, unconscious, blood trickling slowly from light slashes across their throats. The lackluster light trickling weakly through the one large dirty window along the front wall of the house showed them both to be losing their color rapidly. "Oh, God," she moaned. She could see that their chests were moving, and their cuts did not look as deep as they had in her vision, so perhaps there was still time to save them. But first, she had to get rid of Papa Zeke, and it didn't appear that the Winchesters would be of much assistance this time around.

Papa Zeke was in the same place where she had left him on the floor, still clutching at his throat, the same look of utter shock still plastered on his face. Sticky black tar-like blood oozed between his fingers, sizzling where it fell on the grimy floor beneath him. She quickly grabbed the Key of Solomon with the diagram of the Devil's Trap in it, a piece of chalk, and a container of salt from the bag, and started to draw on the ground.

"What did you do to me?" the spirit gasped out.

"Oh, I just goofered you. The knife I cut you with was covered with goofer dust. I made up a batch just for you, hon. Didn't think you were the only one around with a little conjure knowledge, didja?" She completed the outer circles and the large heptagon nestled within them and covered the symbols in salt before stepping carefully into the outline Devil's Trap, closer to Papa Zeke. There, she knelt and began to painstakingly etch a heptagram into the dusty floorboards. Grateful that Sam and Dean had made her practice drawing the symbol before they left the motel, she was able to move quickly. It would have been much easier to sneak in earlier and have the Trap already in place, but that wouldn't have been possible without Papa Zeke catching on to them.

As Melody was finishing the intricate seven-pointed star pattern, she glanced up at Papa Zeke to find that he seemed to be regaining his strength. His breathing was no longer shallow, and he had begun to mutter what sounded like curses under his breath. She wondered just what demonic powers rendered him able to recover that quickly from being poisoned, but couldn't waste time pondering the question. Dipping her blade into the bag of goofer dust dangling from her belt, she darted forward to stab him again, this time plunging the knife in between his ribs to pierce his left side. As he fell to his right, clutching at the new wound, she carefully poured more goofer dust into it, and he shrieked, an ungodly sound that made her blood run cold.

Looking back at Sam and Dean, she saw that they were lying still and were growing paler by the second. The Devil's Trap was almost done, and figuring that the bit she had already finished should be enough to hold Papa Zeke for at least a short while in his weakened state, she scrambled outside the symbol, careful not to disturb the salt lines, and made her way over to the prostrate Winchesters. Dean looked to be in far worse shape than Sam. His breathing had grown shallow and she could barely find his weak, fluttery pulse.

She rifled through the bag of supplies and cursed at finding no first-aid provisions whatsoever. Of course, generally if you stopped to treat wounds in the middle of a hunt, you'd end up dead, she supposed. But still, surely they could at least pack bandages to keep from bleeding out before they could get to safety!

Even though Melody knew next to nothing about providing adequate medical care, she knew that she had to stop the bleeding. It was only a slow trickle, but it was steady, and if she didn't get it stopped soon, both of these men would likely die. With a heavy sigh, she pulled off her t-shirt and cut it into strips. At least she was wearing a cute bra today, pink satin with purple lace flowers. Wadding up one strip of t-shirt and placing it firmly against Dean's neck, she carefully tied another band around it to hold it in place, trying to make it tight enough to keep pressure on the wound, but not so tight that it would cut off either his breathing or the supply of blood to his brain. She quickly repeated the same procedure with Sam, noting with relief that his vitals at least appeared stronger than his brother's, and he wasn't quite as pale.

Turning to finish what she had started with Papa Zeke, she was shocked to see that he had gained his feet and was watching her with an expression of disdain.

"Ah, little girl, little girl. Do you really think that you can do me serious harm?"

Forcing bravado that she didn't even come close to feeling into her voice, she scornfully replied, "Oh, I don't intend to harm you, Papa Zeke. I'm just gonna send your sorry ass back to hell where you belong."

"Yes, well, as the young people say these days, good luck with that. This pathetic excuse for a protective circle can no more hold me than hell could. And you, my pitiful child, cannot very well enter the circle to finish it, can you?"

Well, he had her there. And then she felt a rush of cool air as something whizzed by her right shoulder. An expression of shocked dismay crossed Papa Zeke's face before he looked down to see the handle of a dagger protruding from his heart, and another pained scream issued from the spirit. Melody whirled around to see that Sam had pulled himself up to a seated position against the wall. He blew his index fingers as if they were smoking guns and smirked at her before slumping over to his side, unconscious again. She did a cursory check of his bandages to make sure they were holding, then raced back over to finish the Devil's Trap before Papa Zeke recovered again. She somehow knew that the symbol would have to be both finished and perfect before it would have a chance against holding Papa Zeke long enough for her to exorcise him.

Just as she was finishing the last of the Hebrew symbols within the inner-most circle and standing to leave the confines of the symbol, her legs were pulled out from under her and she crashed to the ground with a startled cry, the breath leaving her lungs upon impact with a whoosh. Before she could recover, Papa Zeke was atop her, holding her legs in place with his, both of her hands trapped above her head in one of his own.

She was frozen in place, able to look at him, to see every malevolent and lustful expression that played across his nearly translucent features, but unable to move a muscle. His powers might have no effect outside the Devil's Trap, but inside, with him, she had no protection at all. She felt his lips brush across her jaw, and felt a tear leak from the corner of her eye. She couldn't reach for a weapon. Couldn't even scream. This monster had her completely at his mercy. And by the methodical manner in which the spirit was removing her clothing, she knew that whatever he intended to do to her, he intended to do right there in front of Sam and Dean. And that somehow made it worse, even though she knew for a fact that this creature intended to kill them all before the night was over.

In spite of herself, she looked over to where Dean and Sam were slumped against the opposite wall. As she expected, they were both still unconscious. They wouldn't be coming to her rescue this time, and when she was killed, they would die, too. Either they would bleed to death or Papa Zeke would eventually escape from the Devil's Trap and finish them off.

Realizing that she was now naked, save for her bra and panties, she turned her eyes back to the spirit and tried to gasp in shock, but his preternatural hold kept her from even doing that. Then, suddenly, her vocal cords were released, although the rest of her body was still paralyzed. "Why?" she whispered.

"Why what, baby? Why did I decide to show you a face you might recognize?"

She was crying in earnest now. "Please…" She wanted to close her eyes, but was completely incapable of movement. Instead, she was forced to stare up into the face of Jordan Forrester. The man who had taken her out on a date seven long years before and robbed her of her virginity, her self-respect, and her peace of mind. Her heart thudded in her chest. She knew that this was nothing but glamour, just one of Papa Zeke's mind fucks. She _knew_ it, but the body hovering menacingly over hers was one that was burned into her psyche. It had haunted her nightmares for months after the event, and even years later, something occasionally triggered it, and she would jolt awake in a cold sweat, crying and shivering.

"Please? Please what? You want me to fuck you again? The way I did for your very first time?"

"Don't do this…" Feeling his weight pressing down on her body, and not even being able to shake her head in negation of what was happening to her felt like the ultimate in torture.

"Oh, but Mel, you'll like it! I'll make you feel so good. You might as well enjoy it, because I don't intend to take no for an answer. You've been asking for this for days now, with the way you dress, and the way you shoot me those sexy little looks. Don't worry, sugar. I'm gonna give you just what you've been wanting." She sobbed at hearing Jordan's words from so many years ago all over again.

As she lay paralyzed and cold on the floor, she realized that she had broken a promise to herself. She had sworn that she would never be helpless like this again. Not like this. But as she lay naked and unable to fight, she realized that, despite all her promises to herself, all her self-defense classes, all her careful attention to her surroundings…here she was again. Lying helpless underneath a man intent on only one thing.

"God damn it, you bastard, you leave her the fuck alone!" Sam yelled weakly from his position across the room.

"Or what, Sammy? You gonna come over here and stop me? You're such a hypocrite, Sam Winchester. We both know you want to do the same thing to her that I'm about to do. Hell, you might not even be as gentle as I will. I think we all know that you've been…different…since Dean brought you back from the dead. And with you being our yellow-eyed friend's only heir to have survived all the recent unpleasantness? Well, I'm no expert on lines of ascension, but I think that makes you the new evil top dog, Sammy. Lucky for me, I'm no demon. I'm just a poor ex-mortal, which means that you're not the boss of me, buddy boy."

"Let. Her. Go." Sam ground out the words, ignoring the spirit's taunts about him as well as the blackness still dancing at the edges of his vision.

"Hmmm." Papa Zeke, still wearing his Jordan-mask, glanced down at the woman pinned beneath him and pretended to consider Sam's demand. "Uh-oh. Doesn't look like there's much point in that now, she won't know what I'm doing anyway. Melody has left the building. Just like last time. What a pity. I bet she'd be a hot little piece of ass if she would just stop checking out every time I get ready to fuck her."

Sam looked closer at Melody and saw that it was true. Her breathing had evened out and her eyes were glazed over. If it weren't for the fact that her eyes were still open, she would look as if she were asleep. Yes, the lights were on, but it was clear that there was no one home.

"Mel?" he called out gently. "Mel, you need to snap out of it, baby, I can't get you out of this if you don't help me."

"Get her out of it?" Papa Zeke snorted. "Looks to me like you might oughta focus on helping yourself and your dying brother before you try to get her out of anything. 'Course, I guess it doesn't really matter so much about your brother, since he wasn't gonna be around too much longer anyways, huh?"

"I thought I told you to shut up," Sam snapped, tortuously pulling himself to his feet and staggering toward the place on the floor where their father's journal had fallen out of the bag of supplies. He flipped to the page he sought and began the exorcism ritual.

Papa Zeke just laughed. "Oh, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. Do you really think you can exorcise me with _her_ in here? You read one more word of that, and I'll do things to her that make _you_ wish _she _had never been born." As if to illustrate his point, he rolled off of Melody's prostrate form and onto his feet, dragging her up along with him. He held her upright in front of him with one arm and ran the index finger of his free hand down her side. A river of blood appeared in the finger's wake and she moaned in pain, but did not rouse from her stupor.

"Stop it!" Sam screamed. "What do you want from us?"

"Well, that's an easy one, Sammy. I want you to _die_."

"Drop!" Sam instinctively ducked at the hoarsely shouted command from behind him and winced as he looked up to see a knife handle sticking out from between Papa Zeke's eyes. The spirit dropped the glamour and resumed his normal appearance before falling to his knees, leaving Melody to tumble bonelessly to the floor. Sam darted forward and picked her up gently. He carried her to where Dean had again fallen unconscious against the wall. He carefully slid Melody's jeans back onto her legs, pulled them up and fastened them, but left her socks and shoes sitting beside her before stalking back over to the Devil's Trap, where Papa Zeke had managed to pull the knife out of his forehead and was glaring daggers at Sam from his spot on the floor. His breathing was jagged and he trembled with pain from the poison coursing through his veins.

"Any famous last words before I send you home, fucker?"

With the return of his normal appearance also came his heavy French accent. "_Non_, I need no famous last words. In fact, I am anxious to return. I must make sure everything is all ready for when your brother arrives, after all." Sam narrowed his eyes and began the exorcism.

Meanwhile, Melody had finally snapped out of her stupor and was cradling the insensible Dean in her arms, lightly slapping his cheeks and speaking softly to him. "Wake up, Dean. Can you hear me, baby, you've gotta wake up. We need to get out of here, okay?" Dean was just beginning to come around when Sam finished the first portion of the exorcism, the invocation. As he got into the second section, the reading of psalms, it became apparent that Papa Zeke was fighting back. Even in his severely weakened state, pumped full of goofer dust, he had raised a wind impressive enough that Sam was having trouble remaining on his feet.

Finally, when Sam reached the exorcism proper, Papa Zeke blew out the front windows of the house, causing jagged glass to rain down on the hunters. Melody staggered to her feet and grabbed a bottle of holy water. Struggling over to the edge of the Devil's Trap, she doused Papa Zeke liberally with it. He snarled at her, but the holy water seemed to have no real effect on him. So she joined her voice with that of Sam, who was finishing the rite: _Recede ergo in nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti: da locum Spiritui Sancto, per hoc signum sanctae Cruci Jesu Christi Domini nostri: Qui cum Patre et eodem Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat Deus, Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen._

With that, Papa Zeke let out a monstrous roar that shook the very ground upon which the house stood. The winds both inside and outside the protective circle reached ear-splitting volumes as the spirit's arms stretched out to his sides as though he were being pulled in two different directions, and suddenly his body exploded into a whirling cyclone of jet-black smoke completely filling the space within the Devil's Trap. And then it disappeared between the dusty creaky floorboards and was gone. An eerie silence descended on the house, the breathing of the hunters in the living room constituting the only sounds to be heard.

Melody pulled on her shoes and socks quietly, then helped Dean get to his feet and, over his protestations, wedged herself under his arm so that she could support some of his weight. He tried to hold himself upright without leaning on her, but she glared at him until he gave in and let her help him. She staggered slightly at first, but then squared her shoulders, straightened up, and guided him toward the door, leaving Sam to grab their gear.

As she reached out to open the front door, Sam called out, "Mel, are you okay?" She gave him a thumbs-up over her head with her free hand, but didn't turn to face him. Slowly and cautiously, she led a weakened Dean down the front walk and loaded him into the backseat of the Impala. He tried to shoo her away, but she insisted on checking both his vitals and the makeshift bandage on his neck before ordering him to lie down and rest.

"Woman, will you quit babying me? I'm _fine_!"

"You lost a lot of blood, mister, and your pulse is still weaker than I'd like. Now you can lie down and rest like I told you, or I'll take your stubborn ass to the hospital to get a doctor's opinion!"

With that, he subsided and leaned back in his seat, pouting. She shut the door to find Sam just closing the trunk and heading for the driver's seat. "And where exactly do you think you're going, young man?"

"Uhh…back to the motel?"

"Indeed you are, but you're sure as hell not driving there. Bring your lanky behind over here. You're going to sit in the passenger seat, and I'm going to check your injuries, and then you're going to sit here and rest while _I_ drive us back to the motel."

He snorted and looked to Dean for support, but the elder Winchester had already drifted off to sleep. With a heavy sigh, he submitted to his Guardian's indomitable will. As she checked his pulse and the laceration across his neck, she mumbled under her breath about damn stubborn, reckless men and how obviously she had to drive, because she was the only one of the three that had yet to pass out from blood loss that night. Finally assuring herself that Sam would make it at least as far as the motel, she slid into the driver's seat and, with a sigh of utter rapture, cranked up the engine. It rumbled to life with a mighty growl, and she pulled away from the curb. "Holy shit," she whispered. "I'm driving the Metallicar."

"Do your feet even touch the pedals?" Sam grouched, still angry about being relegated to shotgun in favor of Mel.

"Hey, I'll have you know that my legs are as long as Deans'. I've just got the torso of a woman half a foot shorter than me."

"Whatever." He reached over to fiddle with the radio and winced when she popped him on the hand. "Hey!"

"Did you forget the house rules, sugar? For tonight, Mel equals driver, Sammy equals shotgun. So what's Sammy gonna do with his cakehole? He's gonna shut it and keep his grubby paws off my radio is what he's gonna do."

He mumbled something under his breath about fascist dictators and the demise of compromise and democratic rule.

"Hey, don't you go getting all poli sci on me over there, Lawyer Boy."

"Mel, I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to pick on me about that, seeing as how _you're a lawyer_!"

"Whatev." With a glance at him out the corner of her eye, she put on a local jazz station and snickered when he looked at her in surprise. "Eclectic tastes," she informed him with a shrug. "But you knew that about me already. I kinda figured you for a closet Miles Davis fan. Is this okay with you?"

"Yeah," he said, closing his eyes and relaxing against his seat. "This is perfect."

The ride back to the motel passed in companionable silence. Halfway there, she reached over to take Sam's hand in hers. "Thanks for back there. You really came through."

"It was a team effort. We all did our part. And _you_ saved our asses by trapping the spirit while we were out cold. Seriously, Mel, are you okay? Do you wanna talk about what happ-"

"No."

"Come on, it's okay if you -"

"No."

"Mel, don't be-"

"Sam, I said no! I'm fine, I don't want to talk about it. I just want to go to bed, okay?"

They both fell silent for the rest of the trip, and if Sam noticed Melody's tense features and trembling hands, he said nothing about it. Sure, she could hide it with the best of 'em, but those little signs told him that she was in some pretty serious emotional pain. He could also tell, though, that he'd never get her to talk about it until she was good and ready. She was like Dean that way.

When they pulled into the motel parking lot, Melody reached over the bench seat to shake Dean awake. Before his eyes even opened, he grimaced. "Sammy, what the fuck did you put on my radio?" Melody cleared her throat from the driver's seat, and his green eyes shot wide open. "Sammy, why the fuck is Mel sitting behind the wheel of my car?" A pause. "And where the fuck are the rest of her clothes?"


	11. Bad People

**A/N: I know I'm on a roll today, posting three whole chapters within the past 24 hours or so. Suffice it to say, other things have been left undone. I just wanted to get these cranked out before my muse decides to go on sabbatical again. I've got the next chapter partially outlined already, so things are still swinging right along.**

**I just wanted to point out that this chapter will reveal some background information about our heroine. Some of it is disturbing, and some of it is just plain icky. But in this chapter, Melody ceases to be "The Guardian" and becomes just a girl, and not a particularly likeable one. Sorry, that's just how it happened. If you don't like it, review and let me know. Maybe I'll make this all a big elaborate lie in the next chapter. I hope not to have to do that, though, 'cause I kinda liked the way this played out. If you're reading, please review!**

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She tossed back another shot of whiskey and added the glass to the stack. The stack was plenty tall, but she just wasn't getting the effect she came in looking for. She wanted to be plastered, and she wanted to get there in a hurry. And for some reason, Jack just wasn't on her side tonight.

Two hours earlier, around one in the morning, she had applied butterfly bandages to the boys' cut throats and thanked God the entire time that the cuts had been shallow and short, because she was _not_ going to stitch their necks back together if she could help it. They had forced her to let them do the same for the long scratch down her side. Then they applied burn cream to the places where the spirit's acidic demon-like blood had burned her slightly, and cleaned and bandaged the cuts she had received walking barefoot through the glass from the blown-out front window during the exorcism. But all in all, the physical injuries had been minor all around on this hunt. So she took a shower and climbed into bed.

Ten minutes after her head hit the pillow, she jolted wide awake, Jordan's hateful words ringing in her ears. And she knew that she wouldn't sleep that night. So she climbed off the loveseat, shimmied into a clean pair of jeans and a lacy camisole and, with a note to the boys (_Gone to Rue Bourbon. I'll find my way back sooner or later. –M)_, headed out to wait for a cab.

She had been sitting at this bar for the past hour and the bartender had finally gotten tired of her ordering another shot of whiskey every three minutes, so he finally left the bottle with her. She had downed half of it in one gulp before going back to her shots. By now, there were about a dozen empty shot glasses sitting in front of her. Most of them had been used at least twice.

Finally, she decided the shots weren't doing it for her, so she got up to join the crowd on the dance floor, making sure to bring her bottle with her. If sitting at the bar drinking shots wouldn't do it, maybe adrenaline from interacting with a large crowd of fellow drunks would.

By the time Dean spotted her an hour later, she had finished off her bottle of Jack and was now working her way through a new bottle of José, and every few minutes, she would spot a guy with beads around his neck and lift her top to get him to give her some. She had amassed quite the collection of beads that way.

He stalked over to her and not-so-gently pulled her off the dance floor and over to the bar. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Dean!" she screeched, throwing her arms around his neck. "I'm so glad you're here! Look, I got a shit ton of beads, dude. And all I had to do was show my boobs. My boobs _are_ pretty fuckin' awesome, though. Wanna see 'em?" She started to lift her shirt, but Dean caught her hands and pulled them away from her hemline.

"Melody. What the _fuck_ are you doing?"

Her smile and dippy demeanor changed as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over her head. "Well, shit, Dean. Way to ruin a girl's buzz. I'm coping, okay? I'm coping the best fucking way I know how."

"Coping with what?"

"Coping with the fact that I had to rip my favorite t-shirt to shreds tonight to keep you and your brother from bleeding to death on a dirty floor in the Garden District. I fucking loved that shirt. It was my favorite sorority party shirt of all time." She shook her head sadly.

"Mel," he warned.

"You want to know what I'm coping with, Dean? You want to share a pathetic chick-flick moment with me? Come on, Dean, really? You should've sent Sam. He doesn't mind these little hormone-fests."

He pulled her into a booth, took away the bottle and said, "Talk to me."

"Dean, if you don't give me back that bottle, you're never talking to anybody again. I'm not drunk enough for this, and if you keep killing my fucking buzz, I never will be."

"How much have you had?"

"I had a fifth of Jack Daniels before I started on the tequila." He looked at the bottle. It was two-thirds empty. "And I could probably still operate a motor vehicle. Dean, be a dear and go find me some 151? It's the only thing that I _know_ I can count on to get me drunk enough to pass out tonight."

"Mel, you may not feel it, but there's no way you're not drunk."

Her voice was flat, hard, and cold. "Dean, you don't know shit about me or my alcohol tolerance. I drink this much on a standard night at home watching TV. Now go find me some fucking Bacardi 151 before I switch to cocaine and LSD."

He hesitated, staring at her for a long moment. She slammed her fist against the table in frustration and began digging through her purse. "Fine! I know I've got some Loritabs in here somewhere, they'll work in a pinch." Then he was grabbing her purse and standing.

"I'll get you your fucking rum, Melody," he growled. "And then we need to talk."

By the time he returned, she had finished the tequila. She cracked open the rum and inhaled deeply before taking a shot of it straight from the bottle. After the coughing subsided, she sat back happily and said, "Now that's the shit. I swear to Jesus, Bacardi 151 is the only alcohol that makes me feel like an inexperienced teenager. A few more shots of this, and I might actually be able to forget him again."

"Forget who?"

"Well, sugar, you asked what I was coping with. _He_ is what I was coping with. Jordan Forrester. How much of what Papa Zeke did to me did you see?"

"Not much. I came to when he was holding you in front of him, then passed out again as soon as I saw him drop you."

"Did you notice that I was stripped to my skivvies and he didn't look like Papa Zeke?"

"Not really. I just saw a forehead and thought I'd aim for it."

"Whatever. Well, after I found myself stuck in the Devil's Trap with Papa Zeke, completely and utterly at his mercy, he, being the class act that he is, used glamour to make himself look like Jordan Forrester."

"Who's Jordan Forrester?"

"Jordan Forrester is the man who decided he wanted more than I was offering." Dean's eyes widened in shock. "Yeah, that's just what it sounds like. I was seventeen years old. It was my first semester of college, and I was so flattered that an older man had taken an interest in me. He was twenty-four, getting his doctorate in physics. Whoever said science geeks couldn't be hot obviously never met Jordan Forrester. Too bad his sense of human decency didn't match his astonishing intellect or his chiseled features.

"He took me to an afternoon football game, then out to dinner. I wanted to go home afterwards, but he insisted that we go back to his place and watch a movie. So, thinking I was just being immature and over-cautious, I finally agreed. He made himself a drink and, wanting to prove that I was 'cool,' I had one, too. A stiff one. Never knew what hit me." She paused to bum a cigarette off a guy at the booth behind theirs before continuing, "The next thing I knew, I was lying on his living room floor with my skirt up around my waist, my panties around my ankles, and his face in my crotch." Dean flinched. She continued flatly, "No, no, don't get squeamish on me now, Dean-o. You wanted to know what I'm coping with, and I'm telling you the whole sordid tale.

"Anyway, I completely wigged out. I'd never even had a guy _touch_ me there. Waiting for marriage and all, you know?" She let out a sardonic laugh. "So much for that plan. Anyway, I made him stop, he apologized, said he thought I would like it. Then when I tried to get him to let me leave, he freaked out. Dragged me kicking and screaming upstairs to his bedroom, threw me on the bed, and fucked me until I was a shivering, sniveling, sobbing puddle of teenaged ex-virgin." She noticed her hands were shaking, so she took another hit from the bottle. She didn't cough this time.

"I went to therapy. A whole fucking lot of it. After a few months, I stopped having nightmares and started screwing every guy I could get my hands on. My therapist said I was cured. Bitch was a fucking moron. But I was able to sleep at night, and I finally felt desirable again, so I ignored her shortcomings.

"Tonight, I was in the Devil's Trap with Papa Zeke on top of me, stripping me naked, and I was completely helpless to stop him. And then, I was in the Devil's Trap with Jordan Forrester on top of me, I was naked, and I was completely helpless to stop him, too. Again. The fucker wearing Jordan's face said the same words to me that Jordan said, and this time, because it was a powerful spirit with demonic powers and not just some buff physics major, I couldn't even close my eyes to block him out." She took another hit from the bottle. "That's what I'm coping with tonight, Dean. That's why I'm trying my fucking hardest to get plastered enough that I either won't remember or won't care, and that's why I'm so fucking pissed off that my plan isn't working. Now. What words of comfort do you have to offer me?" He sat silently staring at his hands linked together on the table. "Need a drink?" He nodded, and she handed him the bottle. "You know, I'd love to be able to take a page out of your book and go screw some random people, but not only am I not drunk enough yet, I stopped doing that after Isaac died."

"You mean before you and Isaac met and got married?"

"No, I mean after Isaac died."

He finally looked at her. She took back her bottle and took another swig. "What are you telling me, Melody?"

"I'm not telling you anything. I'm just making conversation. About the fact that I screwed around on my husband when I got drunk. And I'm usually drunk, Dean." A guy walked by the booth with beads and she flashed him before Dean could stop her. She happily accepted her beads, pulled the stranger down for a lingering kiss, then ignored him until he went away. Dean was staring at her as though she had grown horns. "See why I can't get involved with you or Sam? I'm not a good person. I'm a habitual cheater, never been faithful to a single guy I've ever been with. I show my tits for beads. I make out with random strangers at bars. I'm a drunken slut, Dean. You know before tonight I hadn't had a drink in two days, and that was the longest I'd been without alcohol in well over a year? I'm an evil person. Maybe you should hunt me." She stood from the booth and strutted to the end of the bar where she had spotted a busty blonde. The bottle of rum dangled precariously from her fingertips, but she managed to hold onto it.

Dean ran his fingers through his hair as he watched her go. The things she had just told him were…incredible. He was tempted not to believe them, but he knew she wasn't lying. None of it made sense. The woman at this bar with him tonight was _not_ the woman he had met in Alabama. She wasn't the Guardian he trusted with his life. She wasn't the woman who went to mass before a hunt to pray for their safety and for the strength, courage, and protection to stop the monsters that prowled the earth taking innocent lives. She certainly wasn't the woman he had held in his arms as she cried about having been forced to kill her werewolf husband. This woman was…well, she was a bad person. And then he stopped to think about it. So was he. Granted, he'd never had a spouse or even a serious girlfriend to cheat on, but he wouldn't put it past himself. He made out with and screwed countless strangers he met in bars. Hell, at least she had to be drunk to do it; he went out most of the time with that specific goal in mind. He drank like a fish, especially since his life expectancy had recently been severely shortened. Slumping back against the worn leather of the booth, he heaved a heavy sigh. She was basically the female version of him, and he couldn't quite put his finger on why that bothered him so much.

He glanced up toward the bar to see her doing a body shot off the blonde's perky pink nipple, and his groin tightened painfully. _God damn it, Melody_. Then it tightened even more as Mel lifted her shirt again to allow the woman to return the favor. He groaned and his eyes slammed shut. When they opened again, she was looking right at him. Shooting him an evil grin, she took another swig from her bottle of rum and crooked a finger seductively at him to gesture him over. He took a deep breath before complying. When she arrived, she introduced the blonde in the tight black miniskirt and pink halter top as Mandy. "Hey, Dean, Mandy wants to take us home with her tonight. You game?"

His first thought was to grab both women and drag them out the door. But then his upstairs brain caught up and he shook his head ruefully at Mandy. "Sorry, sweetheart, but I don't think that's such a good idea tonight." Mandy pouted, but shrugged and walked away. Melody and Dean both watched her go and heaved identical sighs. "What, so you're into girls now, too?"

"I'm into that which I find aesthetically pleasing, Dean, and _that_, my friend, was a work of art." She swiveled on her bar stool to face him and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him tight against her. He could feel her heat through her jeans and bit back a groan as he felt himself respond. "You know, Dean, you're not into monogamy any more than I am. And it's been sooo long since I've gotten laid." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself up to whisper in his ear, "You wanna just be fuck buddies? No strings attached?" She licked his earlobe and nibbled at the underside of his stubbled chin before lowering herself to the chair again. "Sammy doesn't hafta know. I can keep a secret." He was seriously contemplating it until she held a finger to her lips and tried to look sexy. She only succeeded in looking drunk and slightly cross-eyed. Apparently, the liquor had finally kicked in. Melody, it seemed, was one of those people who was stone-cold sober until she was drunk, but once she was finally drunk, she was _very_ drunk.

Dean shook his head and tried to back away, but she grabbed him by the collar and pulled his lips down to meet hers. The kiss was even more explosive than their first one had been, and this time, she was the one to pull away. "Is that a yes, Dean?"

He took a deep breath and shook his head. "It's a no, Mel. I think it's time we got you to bed."

"But why are we going to bed if it's a 'no,' Dean?"

"Because we're going to separate beds, babe." With that, he pulled her from the bar stool and half dragged her to the car, stopping every few steps to dodge her drunken efforts to kiss him again.

"Dean, what are you doing, why are you being this way? I know you want me, Dean. You wanna screw, and I'm the one you're here with, so that means you must wanna screw _me_! I can feel it."

He stopped a few steps from the Impala and grabbed her shoulders to turn her to face him. "I don't want to screw you, Melody. If I'm gonna screw anybody here tonight, it's gonna be Mandy the hot blonde."

She laughed. Right in his face. "Can I watch?"

He gave her a look that would melt steel, and it finally dawned on her that he was being serious. Her face fell. "Okay, then, Dean," she said quietly. "Do what you want or _who_ you want. I'm not done with this venue just yet." She pulled herself out of his grasp and toddled back into the bar. Leaning back against the car, he rolled his neck in frustration. _Of course you're the one I want, Mel. But I can't have you, and I wouldn't have you in this condition even if I could._

He took a few moments to compose himself, then went back into the bar after her. It took a minute to spot her. She was plastered between two guys on the dance floor, shameless making out with one while the other grinded against her ass. He stormed over and shoved the guy behind her out of the way, then pulled her away from the one in front of her. "What the fuck are you doing, Dean?" she shrieked.

"Come _on_, Mel, you've had your fun, now it's time to go before you end up doing something – or someone – you'll regret."

She spun around to face him and slapped him across the face. He stared at her in complete shock. Her eyes were flashing the way they had when he'd told her she couldn't go on the werewolf hunt. That was never a good sign. In a dangerously low voice, she ground out, "Do as you please with your genitalia, Dean, but leave me to do what I want with mine." He was angry enough to hit her back. His hand literally itched with the desire to do it. But instead, he turned on his heel and walked out the door. She was making out with another guy before he managed to get the Impala unlocked.


	12. The Morning After

_Somehow I don't think opening my eyes right now would be advisable. For one thing, that hand on my boob is definitely not mine. Neither is the erection pressed against the small of my back. And I'm pretty sure that's another penis nestled against my stomach. It's not mine either. Fuck. I wonder who I did this time._ She cautiously opened her right eye, giving the room plenty of time to stop spinning before opening the other one to focus in on the face inches from hers. _Well, at least he's hot._ Longish blond hair fell across boyish features. She smiled slightly at the dimpled chin. _Just like mine. I hope we're not related._

Carefully removing the hand of the still unseen posterior bedfellow from her breast, she gently shimmied her way down to the foot of the bed and out from between the two men. From her new standing vantage point, she was finally able to get a good look at them. _Correction. Two really fucking hot, really fucking naked, really fucking _hung_ men. Jesus, no wonder every orifice on my body hurts._

She picked her way through the piles of discarded clothing scattered haphazardly around the room until she located the garments she had been wearing the night before, then glanced in the mirror and groaned softly. _Well, I'm obviously not leaving this hotel room without a shower. I don't even want to _think_ about what that stuff in my hair might be._ She trudged into the bathroom with her clothes and the purse she had found buried under the king-sized bed's comforter, which had made its way onto the floor at some point in the night. On her way to the shower, she noted that it was ten in the morning. She was pretty sure she hadn't stopped drinking until about four hours ago, and she was still pleasantly buzzed. _Sweet. If I hurry, I can start drinking again before last night's hangover shows up._

She stepped into the shower and made quick work of it. As she was turning off the water, her cell phone ring tone sounded from inside her purse. She knew without glancing at the caller ID that there was a Winchester on the other line, and from what she could remember of the previous night, she was pretty sure it wasn't Dean.

Sam dodged left, narrowly avoiding a black eye as Dean swung out wildly at whatever evil creature was trying to deprive him of his much-needed slumber, then shook him again. "Dean, wake up!" he insisted. His brother's response was an aggrieved groan and a string of curse words that didn't really make sense together, but got his point across anyway. "Dean, wake up, she's gone. Mel's gone!"

"What do you mean, she's 'gone?'" Dean asked, rubbing blearily at his eyes.

"I mean she left a note saying she was going to Bourbon Street, and she _bailed_, man! I don't even know how long she's been missing, but it's ten in the morning."

"Oh, that. Yeah, I know. Go back to bed, dude, she ain't worth the hysterics." He buried his head under his pillow.

Sam's voice dropped to an eerily low volume. "You _know_? She's not worth the _hysterics_? Dean, I think you should explain to me right now what piece of the puzzle I'm missing here."

Dean recognized that tone. It was Sam's "I'm about to snap and start throttling people" voice. He sighed and sat up, pushing himself back to rest against the headboard. "I woke up around three and found the note. Didn't wanna wake you, so I figured I'd go find her myself."

"And you just came back and went to sleep when you couldn't." It wasn't a question.

"Who said I couldn't?"

A long pause. "Dean, I'm _positive_ that you're not trying to tell me that you found her and left her out there all alone anyway."

"No. I found her, she told me a bunch of shit that really freaked me out, she tried to get me to have a threesome with her and this hot blonde chick, she tried to seduce me, then she got pissed off and slapped me when I told her I wasn't interested. Then she told me in so many words to leave her the fuck alone. So I did."

Sam blinked slowly. "You left her. By herself. In a bar. In New Orleans. Vulnerable and obviously drunk off her ass. Because she fucking _told you to_?!"

"Well, I think she meant it, Sammy. She _did_ slap me after all. Her ass is lucky I didn't hit her back."

"Dean, are you fucking insane?! You left a drunk woman alone in a New Orleans bar! Do you have any idea what's probably happened to her? She could be floating in Lake Pontchartrain right now!"

"Oh, I'm sure she's fine. Nothing that happened to her could possibly shock or offend _her_."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Just how much do you know about that girl's past, Sam?"

"You said she told you something that freaked you out. What did she tell you, Dean?"

"I asked you first."

"Are you talking about Jordan ?"

"She told you about him, huh? Yeah, that freaked me out. I say that sick fucker should be our next hunt." His head snapped up in shock. "Sam, tell me _that's_ not what you thought I was talking about when I said… Jesus, Sam, that wasn't her fault, _nobody_ deserves to be treated that way! What kind of fucking animal do you take me for?"

"Fine. Then what were you talking about? Nothing could shock or offend her? What does that mean?"

Dean ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "If she didn't tell you, then it's not my place to. Let's just say that Mel has a routine down for when she ends up drunk and alone at a bar. She's a big girl, she can make her own decisions, and she can take care of herself."

Sam stared at his older brother for a long moment. "Okay. I don't have a clue what you're talking about, but you're an asshole for leaving her there. No matter what." He stormed over to where his phone was lying on the table and hit her speed-dial button, glaring at Dean the entire time. Dean ignored him, returning to his reclined position and placing the pillow once again over his head to block out the light filtering through the closed blinds.

"Hey, Sammy, what's up?" she chirped brightly into the phone.

"Where the hell are you?" he demanded.

"Jeez, good morning to you too, sunshine! Chill out, I'm just…sightseeing."

"Is that what you were doing all last night?"

"Yeah, I probably did see some sights last night," she muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Listen, I left a note, and I said I'd be back later." She paused. "I'm guessing from your frantic phone call that later must be now. So you just sit tight, don't worry your pretty little head about me, and I'll grab a cab and be back before you know it." She flipped the phone shut.

"Mel? Hello? Mel!" Sam slammed his phone down. "I swear to God, that woman…"

"Tell me about it," Dean muttered from under his pillow.

Across town, Melody put back on yesterday's clothes, minus her panties, which she had been unable to locate. Digging in her purse, she found a toothbrush, a comb, and her makeup kit. It wasn't the first time she'd awaked in unfamiliar surroundings and needed to make herself presentable before she could escape. Over time, she had learned to, like a Boy Scout, always be prepared. By the time she crept back into the bedroom, past the still-sleeping men, and out the hotel room door, she looked basically human again.

While in the shower, she had remembered meeting her erstwhile bedfellows at the bar shortly after Dean left. Fraternity brothers out to have a little fun before heading back up north to some Ivy League school or other in the fall. The details were a little fuzzy after she started chugging 151, but she clearly remembered telling Dean far more about herself than she really wanted him to know. And she vaguely remembered propositioning him for a threesome and then throwing herself at him and being brutally rebuffed. After that, things got pretty hazy. Unfortunately, she would now need to go get shit-faced all over again in order to forget the stuff that she _did_ remember. At least she wasn't thinking about the Papa Zeke incident anymore. Now she had a whole new set of traumatic events to try to drink away. Slipping out the door, she was pleased to find that she was still in the French Quarter. Back to Bourbon Street for her.

Two hours later, Sam stormed into the darkened establishment just in time to see Melody slam down a shot of clear liquor and immediately swivel on her bar stool and punch the man beside her, whose hand had worked its way up her thigh and under the hem of her top. The poor drunk bald sap slid to the floor.

_Wow. That's not what I was expecting to see._ He approached cautiously. "Mel?" Without looking at him, she gestured to the bar stool beside her, indicating that he should sit.

"I figured it wouldn't take you too long to find me. Want a beer?" Without waiting for his answer, she took the full one that the unconscious man on her other side had left behind and slid it over to Sam.

He ignored it. "Where were you all last night?"

She finally looked at him. "You don't want me to answer that question, Sam," she replied seriously.

"Actually, yeah, I do. I was worried sick when I woke up to find you had taken off like that. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about getting plastered, Sammy. So that's exactly what I did."

"What happened after Dean left you last night?"

"Oh, Sam. Don't be mad at Dean. He did just what I told him to do, and it's really a wonder he didn't do it sooner. God, after the things I said to him…the things I _did_! I think Dean and I should probably avoid each other for a while." She shook her head sadly. "I hope I don't get taken off your case. I don't know if it works that way, but if I were the one assigning Guardians, I'd put my drunk ass on permanent unpaid leave. I'm just not cut out for this, Sammy." She quickly took another shot of what, on closer inspection, Sam had been able to identify as vodka, and stared down into the now-empty shot glass. "I can't even take care of myself. How can I possibly be expected to take care of you two?"

"What happened after Dean left last night?" he asked again.

She looked at him coldly and said, "Sam, I promise you don't want to know the answer to that question."

"Yes, I do."

"Fine." She turned back to the bar and stared straight ahead at herself in the mirror backing the bottles of booze. "After Dean left, I met John and Bob. Or was it Jason and Bill? Juan and Brady? Hell, I don't know. They go to Princeton or Brown or somewhere up north, just down here looking to have a little fun before heading back up for school in the fall. They've both got huge dicks, though. We went back to their hotel room around five this morning, and they fucked me six ways to Sunday. It was awesome. My asshole kinda hurts, though. It's been awhile since I've done anal." Sam had turned pale at the first mention of genitalia. "What's the matter, Sammy? You said you wanted to know what happened last night? Well, that's what happened."

He stood so quickly his stool would have fallen over had it not been bolted to the floor. Grabbing her by the arm, he pulled her to her feet and said, "You're drunk, and we're leaving."

"Why, Sammy?" she purred, pressing her body close to his. "Are you wantin' to fuck me six ways to Sunday, too? 'Cause I'm up for it, you know. I used to think Dean was the hotter Winchester…but after getting to know you, Sammy? You've made me reconsider."

"Mel, just stop it. I get that you're trying to shock a reaction out of me. You think you can make me think of you differently, that you can push me away with your behavior? Well, you can stop trying now. Nothing you can do can shock me, not with the way I grew up, not with the things I've seen and done."

"I shocked the hell out of Dean."

"Don't you worry about Dean. He's got no room to judge anybody, not after the things he's done since he decided to march off to hell next year. He's spent the past few months trying to earn his way into the deepest levels. Trust me, he's done stuff that would make you look like a fucking Girl Scout."

She plopped back into her seat and rubbed blearily at her eyes. "Do a shot with me, Sammy? One for the road?"

He looked reluctant, but agreed. Then, with his hand at her back to hold her steady, the two emerged into the bright New Orleans afternoon.

By the time they reached the hotel room, Melody was once again mostly sober, and sporting the hangover to end all hangovers. Dean took one look at her and headed out the door without a word. She just shook her head sadly. He was obviously angry, but she had no idea where the anger was directed. She sensed that he _wanted_ to direct it at her, but he wasn't really mad at her. He was just…mad in general. Shrugging, too tired and achy to try to figure it all out, she collapsed onto Dean's now-empty bed and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

Sam, sitting at the small table across the room, watched and worried. Worried that now he might have to save both her _and_ his brother from their self-destructive tendencies.

**A/N: I've been trying for the past month and a half to figure out where I was going with this story from here. It took me until now to discover that my difficulty stemmed from the fact that I'm done with this portion of the story. It is complete. I'll pick it up again, but it'll be a new fic, part three of The Guardian series. So, I hope y'all enjoyed this story, and if it shocked you too badly...well, I'm not sorry, 'cause I liked writing it. If you've read, please review, and I sure hope you'll read along when the story of Mel's new life with the Winchester resumes, in...a fic that I have yet to name, but I'm sure I'll come up with a title for it at some point, once I start writing it.**

**P.S. AJ already knows this, but I discovered a couple of months ago that Mr. ADSigMel and I are expecting our first baby. So if you see any really psychotic craziness in my writing, feel free to call me on it and I'll fix it, 'cause it's probably just the baby screwing with my head. It happens. **


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